Williams Disappointed With Defensive Display

Swansea City and Welsh international centre back Ashley Williams said he was disappointed with our defensive display on Tuesday night at Derby County.

Chris Porter struck twice to give Derby a deserved 2-goal lead early in the second half, but Angel Rangel got a goal back for us on 55 minutes.

Derby County found it quite easy to attack the back four and we were under pressure from Porter and Hulse throughout the 90 minutes.

They hit the woodwork twice, had a goal disallowed for offside, a penalty appeal rejected and De Vries made a number of important saves to keep us in the game.

Gorka Pintado then came on to fire the ball in off the crossbar to share the spoils at Pride Park.

Ashley Williams has had to get used to playing alongside Albert Serran recently, as seems to be missing his partnership with skipper Garry Monk.

Williams told the Western Mail that his centre back combination with Serran didn't work well as a unit:

'We weren't solid enough together,'

'We've played together a few times, but it didn't work well at Derby for whatever reason.

'But it can work, no doubt about that, and we have a few days to put it right.

'Still, we are hard on ourselves and we were disappointed at Derby despite the point.

'It hurts because I take a lot of pride in the defence. The team play some great stuff, but, as a defender, you want to see the defensive unit do well and I wasn't happy with what we did at Derby.

Just like at Watford a fortnight ago when we lost 2-0, Martinez had more harsh words with his team after the game, Williams added:

There were a few strong words from the manager,'

'But we're all men and we had to take it and we probably needed it.

'We were shaky as a unit, there's no denying that, and, as a team, we could have done better defensively.

'And, whether it comes down to the back four, or even just the two centre-backs, it has to be better and we must deal with that ourselves.

'Derby were pretty simple and there's no excuses when it's that predictable.

Williams and Serran will have another tough test on Saturday as they'll need to keep Robert Earnshaw quiet when we travel to Nottingham Forest.

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