Alan Pardew was digging in for a scrap on Saturday night after seeing Newcastle slip to a second successive Barclays Premier League defeat at St James' Park.
Six days after succumbing tamely to West Ham, the Magpies were largely outplayed by Swansea before slipping to a 2-1 defeat which left them in the bottom half of the table, a far cry from last season's high-flying heroics.
A philosophical Pardew said: "You have to understand that in a managerial career at any football club, you are going to have some times when things don't go for you. Now we have had a week where it really has conspired against us in a lot of ways."
With striker Papiss Cisse missing because of a wrangle with the Senegal Football Federation, Fabricio Coloccini suspended and Jonas Gutierrez and Yohan Cabaye injured, Newcastle were once again woefully short of inspiration as they failed to break down the well-organised victors until the death.
Pardew added: "Jonas was so close. We were deciding on whether to play him yesterday and we felt with the injury he had, it was too risky, so he was very, very close.
"Then we had Papiss taken away from us, we had Shola [Ameobi] only arriving yesterday afternoon [from international duty with Nigeria], so we had a lot of things that didn't work for us this week."
Swansea boss Michael Laudrup was understandably delighted by his team's performance, which saw them leapfrog their hosts into 10th place.
He said: "It was the best away performance this season, including QPR and Liverpool.
"To come here and play Newcastle at a moment when we knew Newcastle really needed a win because they think they belong much higher than they are now after a home loss to West Ham a week ago, we knew it would be really difficult for us.
"But we put on a great performance. We can always discuss what is a big goal chance, but without my Swansea glasses, I think I can say we created at least eight or nine quite big chances, and that's very difficult to do as an away team against a team like Newcastle's."
Source: PA
