Joel Latibeaudiere | To captain Swansea City was a proud moment

The outcome may not have been exactly what he and his team-mates wanted, but Joel Latibeaudiere was still a proud man after being handed the Swansea City captain's armband for the first time against Wigan.

Club captain Matt Grimes missed the clash with the Latics as he served a one-match suspension after picking up his fifth yellow card of the season at Preston.

After that game, Swans boss Russell Martin had told defender Latibeaudiere that the captaincy would be his at the Swansea.com Stadium, and he was honoured to be given the responsibility.

“It was a really proud moment,” said the 22-year-old.

“I just want to say thanks to the manager for choosing me. He had a word with me after the Preston game. He told me he wanted me to captain the team if it was okay with me, and I was delighted to have the opportunity to do so.

“No matter if I’ve got the armband or not, I feel like I’m really vocal on the pitch and I’m doing as much as I can to help the team. I’m trying to take up more of the role of a leader off the pitch as well.

“There’s a lot of people in the team who are growing into those roles now, but Grimesy [Grimes] is obviously our main leader, and he is the one that we look to when he’s on the pitch.”

Despite personal pride, Latibeaudiere admitted it had been a frustrating afternoon on the pitch.

The Swans conceded two early goals from set-pieces to give themselves a difficult task, but a good finish from Ryan Manning before the break and a late penalty by Joel Piroe saw the Swans battle back to take a point.

“It was really frustrating to be honest,” Latibeaudiere added.

“We let two set-pieces in early on and we made things really difficult for ourselves.

“We keep letting cheap goals in and it’s costing us, because it’s giving us a really big hill to climb. But credit to all the lads because we showed real bravery to stick to our game plan and we got the two goals.

“It’s those big moments. We started the season by conceding goals at the end of games, and now it’s like we’re conceding at the start of games.

"I think it’s just that bit of intensity. I know we’ve had a long week away but there’s no excuses, we just need to start the game quicker and that’s what it comes down to.

“We need to do better in the first 20 minutes. If we can do that and score first, I think we’ll start putting more points on the board and that’s what we’re going to try to do.”