Martinez: 'It Feels Like A Defeat'

Swansea City boss Roberto Martinez says today's 2-2 draw at Cardiff City feels like a defeat, and you can hardly blame him.

Nathan Dyer put us 1-0 up after just 11 minutes after good link up play with Jason Scotland.

The home side than grabbed an equaliser 9 minutes into the second half after sloppy defending gave Chopra an easy tap in from close range.

The Bluebirds had the better of the chances as their equaliser completely changed the game in their favour. They had the better chances but we punished their poor finishing late on. Substitute Joe Allen struck a superb effort from long range, firing the ball into the bottom left corner to send the travelling Jack army into raptures. The young, promising midfielder was delirious as he raced over to celebrate with the fans. He must have thought he had won us the game, after all it was a strike worthy of winning a derby.

After suffering a coin being thrown at his forehead, the referee gifted Cardiff City a goal back in the final minutes. It's one of the softest decisions you'll see, Ashley Williams was tussling with McCormack for the ball, he went down in the box and Dean pointed to the spot. I was shocked, it was a nothing-challenge, one you'll see happen in every game and usually ignored by referees.

Martinez was gutted to miss the opportunity to win the derby and get 3 valuable points, he said:

'My players are so disappointed and it's hard to take,''

'It's heart-breaking and feels like a defeat.

'We always expected Cardiff to put us under pressure, but we came through it extremely well.

'The referee said the penalty was given because Ashley had his arms around the striker, but there were nine or 10 instances like that in the game. It was an emotional decision.

'If that's a penalty you're going to give six or seven penalties in a game. Both players are trying to get into a good position and it's a very, very soft penalty.

'The extra two points would have been huge for us. We've got five games left and there's no margin for error.

'It's disappointing because the result doesn't reflect the performance.

Yes I'm biased about the penalty decision because it was so late on in the game, but I still cannot see how the referee can award a penalty in that situation.

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