Jamal Lowe | We need to be more consistent

Jamal Lowe says Swansea City must find more consistency in their performances after suffering a narrow defeat to Ipswich Town at Portman Road.

The Swans had started strongly in East Anglia, and were deserving of their lead when Jay Fulton headed in from Lowe’s cross in the seventh minute, but the home side were able to hit back with two goals in quick succession.

An excellent long-range strike from Jack Taylor, followed by a close-range effort by Conor Chaplin had the Tractor Boys ahead at half-time, while Carl Rushworth made some fine saves.

A penalty from George Hirst in the second half, followed by Liam Cullen being dismissed for two yellow cards, gave the 10-man Swans a mountain to climb against an Ipswich side who have only lost once this term.

However, the Swans rallied and, after Lowe scored a fantastic solo goal in injury time, they were close to an equaliser in the final seconds.

Lowe believes the Swans showed they can compete with any team in the Championship, but admitted there were spells in the game where they needed to be better.

“It was a tough game. They’re one of the best teams in the league, they play good football and they can mix it up,” he said.

“We could have played a bit more. I think they forced us into playing longer and that doesn’t suit us, we don’t have the personnel for that style of play.

“We started well and went 1-0 up, but the shackles went on at that point. It should be the other way around, you should go 1-0 up and the confidence should be high. That’s something we can work on and do better.

“I felt that we could have done a lot better with some of the goals. Jack Taylor’s goal is an unbelievable strike, but we probably should have defended better for the other one and the penalty.

“We dug deep after we went down to 10 men and that kick-started our game again.

“Towards the end we got on top even though we had 10 men and we almost scored with the last kick of the game, but it wasn’t enough in the end.

“We can’t wait until we’re down to 10 men or two goals down before we step up and take the game to them. We need to have the confidence and mentality to play like that all the time.

“We showed character, but it wasn’t enough.

“We want to be right up there, and we feel we’ve got the players, staff and ideas to be up there. It’s just about performing consistently.”

On a personal note, Lowe recorded his fourth goal of the season and his second assist, but admitted he would rather have a positive result.

“I got a goal and an assist but, being ultra critical, I felt I should have had two goals,” he added.

“But we’ve just got to keep working so these goals and assists count instead of just almost getting us there.”