Swansea City defender Alan Tate is determined they will get their promotion challenge back on track on Saturday and warned: “Norwich is all that we are thinking about.”

Tate accepts the Swans, beaten 2-1 at Preston at the weekend, cannot afford to slip up again if they are to earn automatic promotion to the Premier League.

They slipped one place in the table after South Wales rivals Cardiff leapfrogged them on goal difference by beating Derby 4-1. It means fourth-placed Swansea are now four points behind the Canaries, who thrashed Scunthorpe 6-0, going into the televised clash between the two at the Liberty Stadium.

Brendan Rodgers’ side have lost three of their last five games, while Norwich have lost only two of their last 25 Championship matches. Tate stressed there was no room for another poor performance with just seven games left.

“Individually we were poor from front to back against Preston,” conceded Tate, who featured at right-back with Angel Rangel suffering from a stomach bug.

“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.”

For Swansea, it means victory over Norwich is even more important.

“It’s disappointing, because if we had won at Preston then Norwich would come to our place with the chance of us going second,” said Tate. “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.”