Martinez Hints At Portsmouth Changes

The Swansea City manager has a habit of making widespread changes when the cup games come around and despite the Premiership opposition he is hinting that the same could happen this weekend.

The Swans follow the cup game with two important league games – against Preston and Southampton – inside a week and although Roberto says that each game carries equal importance you just get the feeling that the league will take the preference as far as his team selections go.

Speaking to the Evening Post, Martinez said “My concern is that we take the right approach, have the right mentality and are able to be ourselves at Portsmouth

“How many changes we make depends on how the boys feel in the next few days.

“We will have to assess them because Portsmouth is the first of three games in a week.

“We play Preston next Tuesday, but I wouldn’t say that game is more important to me because they are completely different.

“We have a very demanding run of fixtures coming up but the priority for me is every single one of them.

“I am looking to be competitive and challenging in every game we have in January and February and the good news is that I believe everyone is ready for that.

“We used 21 players in the three games last week and almost every one of them is raring to go.

“That means that whoever plays against Portsmouth, I don’t expect our standards to drop.

“To be able to match our players against Portsmouth is a privilege,” he added.

“It’s something to be excited about and proud about, but we have to remember that they are the cup holders.

“They have played in Europe this season and they have some world-class players.

“They are miles and miles ahead of us.

“You never know what can happen when you have the label of underdogs, but I just want us to be ourselves.

“If we do that, there will be plenty of positives to take from the game.

“They know that playing a Championship team at home, they can probably change two or three players to give them a break before the next Premier League game

“But you realise that doesn’t matter when you look at the quality of their squad.

“John Utaka came off the bench against Spurs, for example, and he is a special, special talent.”