Martinez challenges Swans to stay unbeaten

Feb 15 2008 by Tim Lewis, Western Mail

SWANSEA CITY boss Roberto Martinez has challenged his players to stay unbeaten for the rest of the season.

The Spaniard has masterminded Swansea’s rise to the top of League One, but insists his work will not be completed until May 3 when the final league game is finished.

With an eight-point gap over second-placed Doncaster and a game in hand, Swansea would only need to win nine of their remaining 16 matches to equal the 91 points Scunthorpe had last season to win the league.

But Martinez, who has won the last two manager of the month awards in League One, said he is aiming for the full 48 points, starting at Port Vale tomorrow.

He said, “What you need is one thing, but want you want is another.

“I want to win the 16 games left and that’s the attitude we are going to have.

“It would be wrong for us to sit down and set ourselves targets for specific amounts of points, you have to be as strong as you can for every single game and try to win every game.

“On May 3 we can sit down and see how successful we were in achieving that.

“We’ve never set ourselves a points target throughout the season, so it would be wrong to start doing it now at the most important stage.”

Despite their dominance over League One –Tuesday night’s 1-0 victory over promotion-chasing Walsall was Swansea’s 19th win of the season – Martinez admits it would take something special for his side to take maximum points until the end of the season.

He said, “We want to go and win every game, but, if you look at the stats and examples from around the world, you will see that it’s nearly enough impossible.

“You are going to get bad decisions from the referee, football is a game of errors and certain situations don’t go your way.

“It is impossible to predict the results, what you can predict is the talent and attitude you have in the squad. The target is clear now, we are going into the last third of the season which will decide where you are going to be come the end of the season.

“We need to make sure that we don’t drop the standards, that we keep enjoying our football and keep doing what we’ve been doing all season.

“The hunger to win football matches is one of the key ingredients in what is making us successful.”

Goal-scoring midfielder Ferrie Bodde has recovered from the knock picked up before his sublime strike in midweek and should be fine to play at Vale Park.

Martinez said the Swans will be expecting every match to be as physical as Tuesday, especially as they play a lot of teams embroiled in the relegation battle.

“It’s the nature of the game in the last third of the season,” he declared.

“Everyone is really fighting for every point for one reason or another and these are the games that really count.

“For the teams around the bottom of the league, and we know that ourselves from a few seasons back, it’s one of the games of their lives.

“Every game is a final for them now as they fight for survival.

“Each game is physically draining when you play the way we do, it’s been well proven that if you are not fit enough then you can’t play the style of football we want to.

“But we’ve been working really hard to peak our fitness at this time of the year, so in that sense we are looking really strong.

“And nobody wants to rest, the hard part for me is when you have to pull the players off and give them a break.

“On Tuesday night players were getting injured and the easiest thing would have been to come off.

“But everyone wants to stay on the pitch and win football games for Swansea City.”