Swansea City captain Leon Britton looks for instant reaction
14th December
Leon Britton has called on Swansea City to dig deep and respond at Middlesbrough after their 3-1 defeat West Brom.
The Swans failed to build on their rousing weekend victory over Sunderland as they were undone by 13-minute of hat-trick headers from Salomon Rondon.
The frustration for Bob Bradley's men was that they had controlled possession during an encouraging first half which ended goalless.
But their hopes of landing victory disappeared as Rondon ran riot early in the second period.
"It was disappointing," Britton said. "In the first half we played some pretty good stuff, but we are talking about 10 or 15 minutes really at the start of the second half which cost us.
"Now we have to dust ourselves down because we have another game in a couple of days and we have to focus on that.
"We have to look ahead. We are all disappointed but we have to recover and go again.
"We have to be ready to go to Middlesbrough to try to end a week which started well on another high note. It's another chance to try to pick up some points."
Wayne Routledge scored late on for the Swans as Bradley's team finished with something of a rally.
But in truth the Routledge strike provided no consolation after a defeat which leaves the Swans in the bottom three ahead of Saturday's trip to Middlesbrough.
The key positive at West Brom was the nature of the visitors' first-half performance.
"Maybe we didn't create a lot of chances, but we passed the ball well and controlled the game in the first half," Britton added.
"You could see there was a bit of confidence there after Sunderland.
"We said at half-time let's not be sloppy, let's cut out any mistakes that could give them chances.
"But we didn't deal with the crosses and suddenly we were 3-0 down.
"We know West Brom will put the ball in the box. The centre-forward is a strong boy, he is good in the air, and unfortunately we didn't deal with that.
"We came back at the end, but the damage was done."
