It was the smell of defeat – rather the whiff of weed – around the Swans’ dressing room area, as in their first match since the high of their part-owner’s visit they were comprehensively beaten 3-0 by promotion-chasing Ipswich Town at Portman Road.
The loss was the heaviest of Matos’ tenure and extended Swansea’s poor away record, with Anis Mehmeti, Ivan Azon and substitute George Hirst all on target as Ipswich strengthened their push for automatic promotion.
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But while Matos accepted his team were second best, he made it clear the loss must become part of Swansea’s development rather than a result to forget.
“When you lose, you need always to learn,” Matos said.
“It's important to learn what we can improve. Sometimes it's more important what you get out of a defeat than when you win.
“Ipswich are in the top spots in the league. We saw the reasons why and that's what we need to find ourselves when we need to compete against these teams.”
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For Swansea, the defeat leaves them 16th in the table, 11 points outside the play-off places but also 12 clear of relegation trouble, pointing towards a mid-table finish with 11 matches of the season remaining.
Ipswich wasted little time asserting their authority, with Mehmeti striking after just three minutes on the hosts’ return to Portman Road following four consecutive away fixtures. Azon doubled the advantage shortly before the break with a precise finish from a tight angle, leaving Swansea with a mountain to climb.
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Matos admitted the early setback shaped the contest and left his side chasing from the outset.
“Suffering the goal in the third minute of course influenced what comes after that,” he said.
“It's hard to come here. Ipswich are a well-organised team with a brilliant squad and a good manager. They were better than us.
“We knew the first minutes were important but they scored and we had to chase the game.
“We were not aggressive enough, we were not intense enough. With the ball we didn't find the right players to start the attack. Sometimes we had it but in the end there was no outcome.”
Swansea showed more purpose after the interval and introduced Championship top scorer Zan Vipotnik from the bench, but any hopes of a comeback were extinguished when George Hirst added a third with 16 minutes remaining.
Vipotnik came closest to pulling a goal back late on, thundering a free-kick against the crossbar in added time.
The victory moved Ipswich to within three points of second-placed Middlesbrough, with a game in hand, underlining why Matos believes fixtures against the division’s leading sides offer vital reference points for his own squad.
After a demanding, Matos says the emphasis now switches firmly to the training ground.
“We need to train,” he added.
“We need to put the players on the pitch, take the defeat out of their minds and their bodies and push ourselves.
“If we want to reach the level we want, we need to train and push hard. We have had good games before. We will do better games after this. We learn and move on.”
Swansea now have six days to regroup before returning to home soil to face Stoke City, a fixture Matos views as an immediate opportunity to show that lessons from Portman Road have been absorbed.
