Michael Duff | We needed to stay on the front foot and see that game out

Head coach Michael Duff says Swansea City have to make sure they remain on the front foot in games to avoid a repeat of their frustrating 2-1 defeat at Preston North End.

The Swans had led at the interval thanks to Harrison Ashby’s first senior goal, the wing-back finishing off a sweeping move involving Charlie Patino and Josh Key.

The visitors had been good value for the lead and controlled much of the opening hour, only to concede goals from Andrew Hughes and Duane Holmes during the final 25 minutes which swung the result in the home side’s favour.

While Duff felt there were positive aspects of the performance at Deepdale, he was frustrated the Swans had been unable to see the game out having put themselves in a winning position.

“The players did everything we asked them to do for an hour, we were in total control of the game, although again our final ball could have been better,” he said.

“They have changed to 4-4-2, they went direct and we had a poor 20 minutes.

“It is frustrating because there has been a lot of good work done on the training ground, I think you could see that, especially in the first half.

“But we went 1-0 up and we stopped doing the things that had got us in the lead. That’s about mentality, it is not just going to happen, you have to go and win both halves, get the second goal and stay on the front foot.

“That’s the mentality we need to shift because people are not just going to come along and give us a win.

“Compared to our last away performance it was better, with and without the ball, but ultimately we have come out on the wrong side of the key moments again.

“We said to the players at half-time that we could make this game as difficult or as easy as we wanted.

“We could make it easy by just tweaking a couple of things from the first half, or we could make it difficult by coming off script, and that’s exactly what happened.

“You have to see that game out, it’s a real sense of frustration because I thought it was an okay performance.”