Tate: There's No Excuses, We Were Poor

Alan Tate said the Swansea City team can't afford any more 'poor' performances like Saturday's if they want promotion to the Premier League.

Brendan Rodgers' side were looking to keep the momentum going following a fantastic home win against Nottingham Forest a fortnight ago, but yet again they failed to beat one of the bottom sides fighting against relegation as we lost 2-1 away at Preston North End. We've also lost to Scunthorpe United away and Derby County - though they're just safe enough from the drop.

The Swans seem to 'turn up' for the big games, beating Leeds United and Forest recently, but plenty of people say that it's digging out wins against the teams fighting to stay up, and getting points when you're not playing well is a sign of a promotion team. It has to be said, we haven't shown that enough, while in comparison second-placed Norwich City beat Scunthorpe United 6-0 at home on Saturday to stay in the automatic promotion places.

This weekend's game is absolutely crucial to our promotion hopes. a six-pointer against Norwich. If we lose, we're 7 points adrift of the Canaries while a win would close the gap back down to a single point.

Alan Tate was as honest as ever, in his post-match interview and admitted the performance was nowhere near good enough at Deepdale.

'Individually we were poor from front to back against Preston,'

'You aren't going to win games when you play like that.

'It's probably only the second time this season we've played like that — the other was Nottingham Forest away. But we can't afford any more off-days like that where we weren't comfortable defensively. That's not just myself, Garry (Monk), Ash (Williams) and Neil (Taylor) — it's all around the park. We weren't our usual selves going forward either.

'There aren't any excuses from us. We got what we deserved.

'We can't allow another performance like that because it will cost us.'

Tate also showed his disappointment that we're unable to go 2nd now if we beat Norwich on Saturday, he added:

It's disappointing, because if we had won at Preston then Norwich would come to our place with the chance of us going second,'

'It's out of our hands now, but there are still plenty of games left for the situation to change.

'We will get what we deserve at the end of the season.

'There are 21 points to play for and we are capable of winning all of them.

'But we aren't looking that far ahead. Norwich is all that we are thinking about.'

Click here to join in the debate on the club forum.