Much was written in the week after the West Brom game and indeed for parts of the season where we make comments after games where we have been the better side and get beaten but are we really learning from these mistakes?

Again yesterday at Everton were were undone by a ten minute spell where Everton were on top but the difference is in those ten minutes the home side scored twice where both of them looked easily avoided thanks to poor defensive lapses. You do wonder whether Chico Flores charging up the field when we are under pressure is a bright thing to do and certainly there was poor marking for the third goal from the corner where we just looked disorganised at best.

Garry Monk spoke after the game about how disappointing it was to see us concede twice in a five minute spell but we ate conceding goals when we are under pressure and it almost is expected now that we don't capitalise on our spells of dominance but get caught out by other sides when they come at us.

It is what Crystal Palace did, West Brom did it and now Everton have capitalised on it as well and these are not unique circumstances this season with a host of games lost after periods where the Swans dominated possession and chances but failed to capitalise.

I'm not even sure yesterday's failure to capitalise was down to good goalkeeping - there was no save that Tim Howard made that looked anything near world class - the best chances were almost straight at him whilst other times we were afraid to shoot and always looking for the one extra touch or pass when it was not needed.

We have said for months that with the chances we create we will win enough games to stay up but we need to eradicate this bit of conceding all the time when we are under pressure as that will ensure we lose more than enough games to always be in trouble. No away clean sheet since September tells its own story.

“Losing that game was very disappointing for us because we had created a lot of chances, particularly in the second half,” Angel Rangel said after the game

“We fell behind to the penalty, but we came back very strongly after that and we were on top for the last 15 minutes of the half.

“The goal gave us a lot of encouragement, and you could see that in our performance for the rest of the first half.

“We wanted to come out for the second half and build on that, but we have to admit that we made some silly mistakes.

“And, as we have found in recent games, we were made to pay for them.

“So when we look back at it, the frustrating thing is that if we did better in that five-minute spell, then we could have got something from that game.”

I still maintain that we have enough about us to stay up this season but time is running out and I certainly don't want to look back after the Sunderland game with a season possession percentage way above 50% but one of the lowest conversion rates of goals from chances but conceding way too many.

We need to learn from these games and show that we can adapt those learnings to future games. Quickly.

Photo: Action Images

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