Rafa`s Thoughts - Swansea (COC)

For once I have a degree of sympathy for Rafa Benitez.

The under-fire Spaniard ran the gauntlet, as far as abuse from supporters was concerned last night, but is quite right when he suggests that on another night we`d have won that game comfortably.

Addressing the press after the 2-0 first leg defeat, Rafa remarked,

"If you just look at the score, that`s fine. But if you analyze the way things went, it`s a different opinion."

"I can only say what I saw and that was a team creating chances from the first minute and who had 23 attempts on goal."

"I was happy with the way the team worked and, if you played this game 10 times, we would win nine of them."

"The team was attacking, we had plenty of possession and we controlled the game against a good team. But the reality is we made two mistakes and paid for them."

We certainly did. But others may point out that we only really looked like scoring when Demba Ba came on, with the Senegalese striker injecting that little something extra that Fernando Torres has failed to show on many an occasion.

Discussing his latest acquisitions contribution, Benitez added,

"Ba was level with the last defender, so it was a goal."

"You can argue about the penalty or not but obviously it is not a yellow card - that is very clear to me."

Once again he`s right, but then again was it a case of too little far too late?

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