Martinez out to end Huish hoodoo

Oct 27 2007 by Blair Wood, Western Mail

FOUR games, four defeats, no goals; Roberto Martinez knows it’s about time Swansea City ended their Huish Park hoodoo.

Every club has their bogey team and there’s no denying the Swans’ is Yeovil Town. It’s not just that they can’t beat the Glovers at Huish Park, they haven’t even been able to score a single goal.

Martinez, who was just about to take over as manager the last time the Swans lost to Yeovil, struggles to understand the curse. But he is adamant his team can overcome it if they stick to their game-plan.

“You get these bogey teams against which, for some reason, you can’t express yourselves,” he explained. “There are several reasons for it and it is a huge challenge for us to go there and try to change all of that.

“Sometimes you can’t put your finger on what it is about a certain team that makes them difficult to play. Maybe the first time we played against them we weren’t ourselves and since then it has been a snowball situation.

“We need to make sure we change that and play the game as if it was a home game or another ground. Yes, certain dimensions of the pitch affect the way you play a bit, but it shouldn’t be a big difference.”

He continued, “You get certain places you look forward to because you know you will do well and then you get places where you know you will have a difficult time.

“If you look at our record against Yeovil, we’ve never even scored against them at Huish Park. There are certain places that are difficult grounds for us, and this is one of them.

“It’s not going to be easy, but we are ready. We just need to make sure we go there and play our game.

“Yeovil is a ground where we’ve never been ourselves and that’s the challenge. We need to make sure that we are there at three o’clock, ready to play to our footballing strengths.”

Due to the postponement of last week’s game, the Swans have had a two-week break since their 4-1 thrashing of Bournemouth.

Martinez doesn’t believe his side’s momentum will have been affected by last week’s events. But, despite nine goals in the Swans previous two away games, the Yeovil jinx has affected his confidence going into today’s encounter.

“I don’t think the postponement will affect the run we were on,” he claimed. “We were focused on the Yeovil game straight away.

“From a footballing point of view it was the worst time to postpone a game. But there’s nothing we can do about it and we just need to look forwards.”

He added, “We are only as good as our last game. Our biggest challenge today is to try and be ourselves.

“We haven’t done that the last four times we played there. It will be difficult, but it’s important.

“If it was a normal game, I would be very confident right now. But, knowing we are going to Yeovil where we haven’t been able to perform in the past, we need to be careful.”

Martinez’s preparations for the game have been aided by the return to fitness of several key players.

Leon Britton, Alan Tate, Darryl Duffy and Owain Tudor-Jones all featured in a midweek reserve game and, along with Andy Robinson, Martinez says they are all ready to play first-team football again.

Whether or not they feature will depend on whether the Spaniard wants to tinker with a winning line-up. The Swans have been on a great run of late and that owes a lot to the likes of Paul Anderson, Tom Butler and Warren Feeney, who have made the most of their opportunities since coming in for Britton and co.

It would appear Martinez now has a selection dilemma, but he doesn’t see it that way.

The 34-year-old’s mantra is “I don’t make decisions, football does” and he seems to be sticking to it.

He insists the club is now benefiting from the strength in depth he strived for this summer and claimed no player would be an automatic selection for the first XI.

“The boys who have come in have done really well,” he said. “Now it’s down to the other boys to push for their places.

“It’s not really a difficult decision for me. The boys all know they need to earn their places.

“It’s a fantastic position to be in and we worked very hard in the summer to get it this way. We wanted a very strong squad and Swansea will get the rewards from that.”

Yeovil also have a strong squad and, having lost in the play-off final last year, they are once again battling in the top half of League One this year. Russell Slade has put together a hard-working, effective team and Martinez was full of praise for today’s opponents.

“They know each other very well and they are a solid unit,” he said. “Russell has done a fantastic job.

“I saw them in the play-off final last year and I thought they were a little bit unlucky. It shows you the potential they’ve got that, despite losing a few players, they are still capable of doing something this year.

“He’s brought in a lot of experience, especially in the front line. They like to play a 4-3-3 and they have good, experienced players with the likes of Paul Warne and Lloyd Owusu.”

Superstitions and the opposition aside, Martinez does have one other concern about today’s fixture. The Swans will once again have a Premiership referee in charge of the game and the Spaniard isn’t sure it will work out in their favour.

Dermot Gallagher refereed Swansea’s last visit to Huish Park and it was one of his contentious decisions that led to the home side’s last-minute winner. The incident left Martinez enraged and he is hoping history won’t repeat itself today.

“We had a Premiership referee there before and it’s the same today,” he added.

“On that occasion we lost in the last minute after a very strange decision.

“I never understood why, when you want to punish someone, you have to affect another two clubs. If a referee is punished, you need to keep him away from the game full stop.

“But, on the other hand, if he is looking forward to the game we could get a referee well above the usual standard.”