A Stunned Rodgers Says We Were Beaten By Quality

A stunned Swansea City manager Brendan Rodgers says his side were beaten by individual quality today at home to Newcastle United.

The Swans have lost their last three games, two of which at the Liberty Stadium.

Rodgers' team had a massive 68% possession in this afternoon's game against the Magpies, but the visitors converted the few chances they needed to win the game 2-0.

The individual quality of £9.5m striker Cisse did the damage, scoring either side of half time to give his team the three points that puts them up into fifth place.

Rodgers said he was left stunned after the defeat:

'We are a little bit stunned to be honest,'

'We made a good start with the ball, and then they got the goal which was obviously a great start for an away team.

'In the end we were beaten by quality. But we can't be too disappointed because Newcastle are a good side who are challenging for the top four in the Premier League.

'To dominate the ball like we did makes me very proud, but we gave possession away for both of their goals and that's obviously a little disappointing.

'We needed that little bit of luck today, but we just couldn't score. But Cisse took his goals well and that's the difference at this level.'

Rodgers remained upbeat despite a drop in recent form:

'We will find solutions, but we can't be too downbeat because they have good experience at this level and they have some excellent players,'

'We've come off the back of three difficult games; Everton have got great experience, Tottenham were challenging for the title and Newcastle are up there as well.

'We were the better side today, but we didn't get the result we wanted. This season was always going to be a test of our talent, and I think we've passed that.

'But we now need to finish the season well and not let it fizzle out towards the end, so we must fight between now and the final game.'

Rodgers also explained the reasons for making two changes to the starting line-up, replacing Danny Graham and Scott Sinclair with Luke Moore and Nathan Dyer.

'I just thought that a lot of our goals recently have come from midfield, so I wanted to freshen it up a bit,'

'Neither Danny or Scott have had chances to score in recent games and we brought Luke in to give us something a little bit different.'

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