Rodgers: We’ll Learn A Lot From Chelsea Defeat

Swansea City manager Brendan Rodgers says his team will learn a lot from yesterday’s 4-1 defeat at Chelsea.

The Irishman returned to the club where he spent four years as Youth Team Manager and Reserve Team Manager respectively, but it was a harsh welcome for the 38 year-old as Chelsea strolled past the Swans, winning 4-1 with 2 goals either side of half time.

Chelsea dominated early on, as Torres’s opener on 29 minutes knocked Swansea’s confidence before Ramires doubled their lead 7 minutes later.

The Swans were given a boost just before half time though, as Torres was shown a straight red card for a bad two-footed challenge on Mark Gower. Their 1-man advantage gave the visitors more confidence to try and get back into the game, as they started to finally create some chances – with Dyer going closest as he saw a shot hit the crossbar.

Swansea City couldn’t find a way to narrow Chelsea’s lead and Ramires ended any hopes of us getting a point by scoring his second of the game.

Ashley Williams headed home a late consolation, but in injury time, Dider Drogba added insult to injury to make it 4-1.

Rodgers said afterwards that his team will learn from defeats like this:

“The best team won – I`m not going to sit here and say anything different,”

“But we`ll learn a great deal from these kinds of experiences and games like this. It was always going to be a difficult start for us away from home but there are many things that we have learned going to places like Manchester City and here that we can take into future games.

“We came here and we weren`t in fear, we weren`t intimidated, and we have shown again we can come to these places and get on the ball. I know the quality of these sides but I also know as the season goes on we will get better.

“It is character-building. Don`t forget, a lot of these players have not experienced games like these before – they are players who were told they were not good enough for League Two and League One but are here in the Premier League.

“But they have shown they are good enough to get results away as well as home. We had kept three clean sheets in five games and that shows that we can compete at this level and continue to get results.

“And we will not be playing teams with top European players every week.”

Rodgers said his side made a good start to the game:

“We made a good start and contained them early on but the first goal rocked us a little bit,”

“I felt our organisation was very good. We knew where their threat was coming from, but within a split second they have scored a good goal which gave them confidence and they had a spell of 25 minutes of very good possession after that.

“In the second-half we came out and we weren`t intimidated in any way but we conceded a poor third goal which was disappointing from our point of view.

“I`m very proud of the players yet again because we kept going. I said to them at half-time that they had to continue with their belief because we had started with that before the goal rocked us.”

Rodgers also spoke about Ashley Williams and Angel Rangel – who had a long argument with each other after Drogba scored Chelsea’s fourth in the 94th minute:

“It was late on in a game where we have not defended as well as we have shown after coming into it with three clean sheets.

We`ve made defensive mistakes but they are good guys and if mistakes have been made they are honest ones.

“They have fought for their lives to be here and they will continue to fight. We shake on it and we move forward.”