The Englishman is in no way trying to blame the 1-4 defeat at the Stade de Genève on referee Erik Lambrecht's decision after 60 minutes of play.
But it had major consequences in Potter's debut as national team captain.
We make a mistake (Gabriel Gudmundsson), it's cheap for them, it's a cheap penalty. But it is what it is. We have to do better there.
"I haven't seen the penalty in retrospect. The feeling from the bench was that it was a bit cheap. To get something out of a game like this, that kind of decision has to go our way," says Graham Potter.
“Be in the game”
Before Granit Xhaka scored the penalty to make it 2–1, the national team had pretty good control of events.
"The feeling at half-time was that we were in the game. The goal changed things a little too much," says Potter.
The setbacks came one after another. Right-back Emil Holm broke down and was forced to be replaced. On the bench was natural right-back Emil Krafth. Instead, Gabriel Gudmundsson was brought in as left-back and Daniel Svensson had to step over to the right-back position.
"The injury affected us. I didn't think it was right to put Krafth in because he only joined the squad on Friday," Potter said.
Sometimes you have to accept that you are playing against a good team. We were close to 2-1 (Alexander Bernhardsson free kick) and their 2-1 was cheap. Switzerland is the better team but there were positive things in our game. I think the players approached the game well in the first 60 minutes.
Isaac came in
We were compact, the thoughts on how to win the ball back were good. We grew into the game, got better, scored a nice goal (Benjamin Nygren).
Central midfielder Yasin Ayari had to be substituted due to a sore ankle. At a disadvantage, Potter went on the offensive.
- We had to win the game, made offensive substitutions and that opened up space for Switzerland. We were a little too spread out and had to do better on their goal. We let a little too much slip away in the second half.
Alexander Isak came on shortly after Xhaka's penalty goal.
The plan was for him to play 30 minutes. It wasn't an easy position in the game to get into. Hopefully we'll see more of him on Tuesday. The plan is for him to play more against Slovenia.
What do you say about Gudmundsson's mistake (too loose a back pass to Viktor Johansson) that led to the penalty?
It's part of football. Mistakes happen. It's part of life. You win together and you lose together. It's a night we didn't enjoy. I told the players that they'll have to celebrate in March like Switzerland did now.
The national team awaits the playoffs in March.
