Post Swansea comments

Athletic boss Ronnie Moore watched his team lose another two vital promotion play-off points in the draw with Swansea and his after match comments were, “The first half wasn't particularly good and there were one or two players who had been poor, but we came through it as a team. Nobody hid from responsibility, and in the end Swansea couldn't have complained if we had beaten them by four goals. On another day we would have put away some great chances, but it's like someone up there is watching us and deciding to put us through hell. It was cruel that we didn't win, but sometimes you need a few breaks and there's no doubt we were unlucky. There were too many longs balls in the first half, but we started playing in the right areas and really got the supporters behind us."

"The crowd were magnificent when we pushed for that second goal and the lads responded by showing a great fighting spirit. They were willing to die for the cause, it's just a pity we couldn't make all those chances count. Luke Beckett was unfortunate because he kept getting in the right places without finding the finish. In one sense I'm relieved to end our losing run, but it feels more like a defeat because we could be two points closer to the play-offs. Swansea came here and set out their stall for a draw, so we'd done the hard work by getting our noses in front at 1-0. It was definitely a penalty, but then we had some Fred Karno's defending when they equalised. Lee Grant (pictured) could have let the ball run out of play or kicked it into touch, but he tried to keep his clearance on the pitch and it came down with snow. That put Terrell Forbes under pressure and, although the goal was a magnificent strike, we should have avoided it."

"Having said that, Granty has been brilliant since he came to the club and if you compare his saves to his mistakes, there's no doubt he's in credit. Overall the second half was a good team performance, we just didn't get the rub of the green. It's a concern that we are relying so much on Luke Beckett, but other people have had chances and I'm sure it's something we can put right. You can't fault any of the lads for effort, so we've still got an outside chance of finishing in the top six.”