Monk says his side went into the game with confidence but watched on as a horrendous first half saw Chelsea score four, hit the bar twice and could have had plenty more on what can only be said was a very bad day at the office.
And Monk described it as one of the worst performances of the season with his team second best in every singe department as Chelsea laid down the marker for their title credentials whilst the Swans deficiencies in their squad depth were cruelly exposed.
Two goals each from Diego Costa and Oscar and one from Schurle were enough to give the visitors an easy win and the Swans boss was a despondent man after the game
“We made some horrible mistakes and were punished very heavily,” Monk said. “We got exactly what we deserved, it wasn’t good. It was one of our worst – if not the worst – performance of our the season and that’s disappointing because we came here with some confidence.
“It was a horrible first 45 minutes for us, everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong. We got punished. We don’t accept those standards. The players know that but results are my responsibility and I take full responsibility for this.
“We put on the worst kind of performance that we could do.
“We always knew Chelsea are very good but you can’t start a game the way we did and continue like it.”
It must have made for a tough team talk at half time and the Swans were more competitive in the second half but it was difficult to tell whether that was us putting in more effort or Chelsea quite content to retain the lead that they had earned themselves in the first half.
“The game had gone at 4-0 – I didn’t use those words but I think you know that if you’ve been in those positions,” Monk added. “It’s about creating a bit of pride for yourself and trying to represent the identity of the club and the way of working that I’ve put to the players, and to not accept what we’ve just done.
“I felt we accepted them in the first half and that was our downfall but in the second half, for our fans, we had to put a bit of pride back into the performance.
“It’s disappointing because you can’t quite see those mistakes coming because we’ve been performing very well this season. Unfortunately when you make those mistakes you get punished, especially against a very good team like Chelsea.”
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