Mike van der Hoorn has told his Swansea City team-mates they need to be far more ruthless if their promotion campaign is not to falter.
The Swans lost 2-1 at Rotherham on Saturday, despite dominating almost the entire match and leading 1-0 until the final 11 minutes.
“We have to score goals to kill the game,” said Swans skipper van der Hoorn after his team caved in to concede two late penalties.
“We had chances. If we are 2-0 or 3-0 up then the game is in our hands.
“We blame ourselves because three points were there for us and we left with nothing.”
Substitute Ryan Manning completed the turnaround as the Swans paid the price for not adding to their goal tally when on top.
Leroy Fer, Jay Fulton and Bersant Celina all spurned good chances and manager Graham Potter admitted: “Whenever it’s 1-0 you leave yourself open to anything.
“We weren’t as clinical as I would have liked. We restricted them to pretty much nothing but if you don’t score the second goal, anything can happen.
“Ultimately you need to score goals. They scored two but we scored one.
“The result is important but you also have to have a way of playing over the course of a season and that’s the thing for us. We are suffering because we put a lot into the game.
“When you look at the game in its entirety we had enough chances to get the second goal.”
Oli McBurnie had given the Swans a 25th-minute lead after he tapped home Daniel James’ pinpoint cross.
The Swans had further chances before and after the break to extend their lead, and they were punished by two controversial penalty decisions in the last 11 minutes.
Referee Tony Harrington pointed to the spot after he felt Kristoffer Nordfeldt had fouled sub Jamie Proctor before awarding another spot kick for a handball against Fer.
Potter was not convinced with either of the penalty decisions.
“I need to look at the penalties again,’’ he added. “But the first one, the boy (Proctor) is offside to start with and there didn’t seem too much in it (challenge from Nordfeldt) from where I was.
“As for the second one, I can probably see why he’s given it. But the ball has been hit that hard so close to Leroy that it was a reaction to protect his face. I don’t think he’s made himself any bigger, which is the general rule.
“When the ball is flying towards your head at such close range, then I defy anybody to say they are not going to react the way Leroy did. The key question the referee has to decide is has he made himself any bigger. The referee obviously thought he did. That’s life.”
