Darren Davies | We didn’t deserve to lose

Swansea City Under-18s coach Darren Davies felt his side deserved more from their 2-1 defeat to Watford Under-18s in the Professional Development League.

The Swans found themselves 1-0 down just before half-time as Adian Manning found the bottom right corner from a free-kick.

Just after the break, the Hornets would make it two, Remerio Moulton poking a shot underneath Ben Hughes.

Iwan Morgan pulled one back for the Swans soon after, capitalising on a defensive mistake to give himself a simple finish.

But with 25 minutes to go, Swansea’s challenge grew steeper as Josh Carey was dismissed after picking up a second yellow card.

Despite the man disadvantage, the Swans came close to an equaliser, with Geoff Bony coming close before Filip Lissah hit the post with just minutes to go.

Despite the defeat, Davies was happy with his side’s performance and felt they could, and perhaps should, have taken more from the game.

“I’m actually happy with the boys, I’m disappointed for them but when we analyse the performance I actually think it was one of our better displays,” said Davies.

“We played exceptionally well in the first half, created chances, were the better side and probably should have been a couple of goals to the good, and then we conceded a set piece right before half-time which was really disappointing.

“After everything we spoke about at half-time, we just gave away a really poor goal from our point of view two or three minutes into the second half and within a four-minute patch we are two goals down and I don’t think the boys deserved that.

“I thought that we were the better team, but in fairness to them they came back and showed resilience and came back into the game.

“We scored a good goal through Iwan Morgan’s good pressing, and then with half an hour left we commit a sending off that we need to learn from, the boys gave maximum effort but it’s a needless tackle that results in a second yellow card.

“From then on, we were chasing the game and it was difficult, they were managing the game well and playing for time, but we still had a couple of chances to get something out of the game. The reaction from the boys to going down to 10 men was excellent.

“The boys showed resilience and character, but that was all in the last half an hour, I think we played some very good football until the sending off.

“The first 45 minutes I thought we were very very good, I think it was a good performance in and out of possession, in transition we were decent, we created good chances and I don’t think anybody would have argued if we were a couple of goals to the good before the break.”