‘We’ve had fog… now a referee getting injured!'

Freddie Ljungberg was left frustrated after the final whistle on Monday night, despite seeing his side overturn a two-goal deficit to draw 2-2 with Swansea City.

We delivered a professional attacking performance in the second half, but were ultimately made to pay for conceding two goals on the stroke of half-time, following a lengthy break in play due to an injury to the referee. 

We spoke to Ljungberg after the final whistle - and this is what he said:

on the overall performance…

We’re disappointed because of the first half. It was one of those days where we’ve had all kinds of stuff, we’ve had fog and all kinds of stuff, and now we’ve had a referee getting injured too. Our players had to deal with that because there was a long stoppage in play. In the second half we were brilliant and there’s nothing else I can say. The fans were on their toes with that football and they came up at the end to say that they were so proud of the boys, so that really makes me proud. It’s just sad that we couldn’t get the reward of winning the game.

on the difficulties that we had with breaking down Swansea…

It’s one of the first times we’ve had a team that sits back a lot and only hits us on the long balls, so we started taking too many touches and became frustrated that we couldn’t cut them open easily, so that’s something that I spoke to them about because you need to have patience and believe in yourself. It needs to be one or two touches and you need to move the ball, but the main thing is that when someone does what they do, you can’t concede. You can work on it and maybe score late on, but to concede a free-kick and a long ball to go 2-0 down makes things very difficult at any level. To play so well and have so many chances and almost get it done in the second half, I have to be happy with that, but I’m disappointed for the boys that we didn’t win.

on Balogun’s impact off the bench…

We wanted speed and we changed how we played in the second half to make it more difficult for them. It was a bit of a gamble, but it worked. TJ and Flo played with the under-18s on Saturday so I had to change them at 45 minutes because they couldn’t play longer. Eddie couldn't play today so that was already prepared, but I thought he did really well. We had pace in behind and we changed the game with a lot of runs that they couldn’t cope with.

on Tormey grabbing a reward for his hard work…

I said to him in the dressing room that he’s trained so hard the last month and done really well - and the tonight he’s grabbed his reward. It was a great goal so it must feel really nice for him.

on whether we should have picked up all three points…

With how we played and dominated in the second half, yeah. You could say that we dominated possession totally in the first half, but we didn’t create anything so we said we’d go a bit earlier in behind in the second half and without being too harsh, there was a blatant penalty on Flo in the last minute, but you can’t have it all.