Chris Lakey It's beginning to feel like Groundhog Day for Glenn Roeder. Seven days after attempting to explain how City had thrown away a 2-1 lead at home to Preston to take only a point, Roeder had to explain away the 3-2 home defeat by Swansea.

Chris Lakey

It's beginning to feel like Groundhog Day for Glenn Roeder.

Seven days after attempting to explain how City had thrown away a 2-1 lead at home to Preston to take only a point, Roeder had to explain away the 3-2 home defeat by Swansea.

Admittedly, the visitors from South Wales were a big improvement on an average Preston side, but once again Roeder was left with scant reward for his team's efforts.

And his frustration was impossible to hide.

“I have been here too often this year already, exactly the same situation, with Preston North End last week” said Roeder.

“We've had two home games now where we've taken one point.

“It's absolutely crazy.

“But we dominated both teams for long periods, not the whole game, no one dominates any team for 90 minutes, but we have had a large percentage of the game.

“We have created chances, we've missed them and we get punished with some diabolical defending.

“The questions we've asked about how to defend, at corner kicks for instance, we don't do correctly.

“And the very annoying thing is, at Colney on Friday we were going through all their potential routines and having people in places to do the job that is required to stop them scoring.”

City deservedly took the lead through the recalled Arturo Lupoli on 28 minutes, but were destroyed by Swansea's three-goal blast in a five-minute spell around the half-time interval.

The statistics will show “Jason Scotland 43, Darren Pratley 46, Ferrie Bodde 48” as doing the damage, but in truth it was City who provided the assists.

“The goal in the first few seconds of the second half, the man in the hole, the player who was told to play in that position every time they have a corner kick, does not do his job correctly,” said Roeder.

“You never ever allow anyone to get in front of you, but not only did he get in front of the player in the hole he got in front of his marker as well, and of course, he just bends and gets a flick on it and to compound matters it is straight in Marshy's (David Marshall's) hands and David Bell deflects the ball past Marshy and we're off to the poorest start you can imagine in the second half.

“Instead of coming in 1-0 up it could have been 2-0 or even 3-0 up at half-time.

“It was 1-1 and in a minute we are 2-1 down.

“Absolutely ridiculous, but it was only going to get worse in the next minute or so.

“We give the ball away cheaply in the centre of midfield and I don't think we get another touch until Marshy picks the ball out of the back of the net and we just might as well put a gun to our heads because you can't concede three goals and expect to score four, that's Fantasy Island stuff, once in a blue moon.”

Leroy Lita was the main culprit for two missed opportunities in the first half but, after an own goal gave City hope, the comeback faltered again on the inability to put the ball into the net as Swansea held on for the points.

“We had two terrific chances - David Bell on the back post after Wes Hoolahan slipped the ball to him and Jamie Cureton with a skied one from the penalty spot,” reflected Roeder.

“A hugely disappointing day and it shouldn't be like this.

“I should be up here talking about a win, like last week.

“It's becoming too commonplace and we need to eradicate these errors very, very quickly.”

With Dejan Stefanovic and Antoine Sibierski injured, Lee Croft absent because of illness and Darel Russell beginning a three-match ban, Roeder was left with 16 fit senior players.

“When we have four or five players out the squad is a little bit thin, but that's not an excuse,” he said. “There was still enough quality out there to have won that game today.

“As their manager just said to me 10 minutes ago, “how we were in the game after 30 minutes I do not know. It was a combination of luck and your poor finishing”.

“The game should have been over after 30 minutes.”