'Individual mistakes': Nicky Hayen's verdict on Burnley's defeat to Swansea City
Nicky Hayen’s verdict on Burnley’s defeat to Swansea City
Nicky Hayen accepts Burnley’s inexplicable first-half mistakes were to blame for their miserable defeat at Swansea City.
The Clarets drop to the foot of the Championship table after going down to a 3-1 defeat in South Wales.
Two of Swansea’s three goals were gifted to them by Hayen’s men, with goalkeeper Max Weiss and Ugo Raghouber at fault for the two first-half strikes.
While Burnley momentarily got themselves back in the game through Largie Ramazani’s first strike for the club, the home side added a third to compound the visitors’ misery.
“Of course Swansea won the game today, but we lost it in the first half,” Hayen said.
“We started actually quite well. I think we were equal. We created as many opportunities in the first half, but you make two individual mistakes in the first half and you're 2-0 down.
“Then you make life for yourself really difficult, because to win games first of all you have to play without mistakes, then it's already hard.
“This wasn't until half-time, they even had the ball on the post, this was their biggest chance in the first half because we gave it away.
“We had some opportunities also with Oli [Sonne] just before half-time, with Zeki [Amdouni] with the ball on the bar, so we had our moments also. But they managed the boxes better than we did.
“Then in the second half we talked: ‘okay, we cannot change these mistakes again, so we come out with fresh energy’ and I thought you saw it in the second half. We try to find that goal and that could maybe change their thinking, because you can cause problems, but then they scored immediately the third goal and then it would be difficult for us.
“At the end you create chances. Okay, the disallowed goal of Jamie [Vardy], the corner kick goal that was disallowed, but it became an open game, a transition game. Because if you are two goals down, you have to take more risks, because they are just waiting and keeping possession.
“This was for me the biggest difference today in the game. Their accuracy on the ball was much higher than ours. They didn't lose the easy balls where we sometimes did and being efficient with your chances, that's how it was.”