Preston fan John Smith believes North End switched off at crucial moments in the 3-2 loss away at Swansea

Recent trips to South Wales have not provided much joy for the travelling faithful and Saturday’s fifth consecutive loss at the Liberty Stadium was no different.
Referee Dean Whitestone awards Preston North End a penaltyafter Swansea City's Connor Roberts fouls Preston North End's Sean MaguireReferee Dean Whitestone awards Preston North End a penaltyafter Swansea City's Connor Roberts fouls Preston North End's Sean Maguire
Referee Dean Whitestone awards Preston North End a penaltyafter Swansea City's Connor Roberts fouls Preston North End's Sean Maguire

Prior to this game we had not recorded a win at Swansea in 18 trips stretching all the way back to 1961.

However, after a first half display in which we played some Samba-esque football to match the late summer August sun it appeared that the mother of all bogeys would finally be laid to rest.

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We looked like we were going to go into the interval a goal up thanks to a shot from distance by Joe Rafferty – our starman playing on the left – with the only downside to it being an injury to Louis Moult, who was stretchered off midway through the first half.

The introduction of his replacement Andre Green gave a buoyant away support a chance to exercise their vocal chords with a song based on the lyrics of “Dancing Queen” but any jiving around the concourse bar at half-time was swiftly curtailed when the Swans scored an undeserved equaliser on the stroke of it.

The home side came out for the second half with all guns blazing and went in front for the first time in the match shortly after the hour mark and suddenly an assured display was turning into another fruitless one.

What made it more frustrating was that no sooner had we been given a lifeline having equalised from the penalty spot we conceded another goal straight away.If you leak three goals in a game usually on most occasions there is nothing for you and although we did press Swansea towards the end of the game unfortunately this proved to be the case.

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Another negative from this game as well as the result was that in my opinion all three goals were relatively soft and could have been prevented with better defending

After this week’s three matches I am of the belief that apart from Ben Pearson – my man of the match – and Ben Davies the other players in the squad are interchangeable without altering the strength of the side as a unit which is a plus given last year's horrendous run of injuries.

There is still a long way to go before we will know if we will be looking up or down the table towards the end of the season but we should have really taken at least a point and would have had we not switched off at important times.