Manager takes the blame but there’s far more to worry about

Russell Martin was brave enough to admit he got it wrong as the Swans were hammered at Burnley to bring an abrupt end to their four match winning run.

Martin said that he had planned for the Clarets game several weeks ago but the run of good form changed his mind to stick with what has been working rather than alter a winning formula.

But it all came crashing down around him as Burnley took complete control highlighting the many frailties that we saw at the start of the season. Soft defending, weak in midfield and glaringly poor on both wings.

But today it was the attitude that was a concern too with it never really looking like anything but damage limitation after Vitinha headed home from some typically weak defending from a bouncing ball in the area.

It can’t be forgotten the good run of form which has seen the Swans climb the table of late but the test now will be whether they can bounce back with two very important games coming at home this week.

Martin’s career in management is only consistent in the inconsistency of his teams’ form with strong runs usually ended by similarly long poor spells of form. It’s his job to change that.

“It hurts. I think it’s my fault,” said the Swans boss.

“Looking ahead to Burnley a couple of weeks ago, I had an idea in my mind of what we were going to go with but because we’d won four games in a row, we just tried to keep it the same really. So I have to take responsibility for that.

“We spoke about it, I had an idea in my mind of how we wanted to come here and maybe just adapt a couple of bits.

“When you’re winning, it’s really difficult to do that because the guys have been in such a good place. We just didn’t see the response we’ve had in recent weeks after we went 1-0 down really. We lacked a bit of courage and the fear crept in a little bit.

“We’re playing against the best team we’ve faced since we’ve been here probably, the best squad, the best team, they’re really good so you have to give them a lot of credit.

“It’s been a tough, tough day for us, the worst one we’ve had this season. I’ve just said to the players that we need to make sure that this is the worst we feel this season.

“Big shout out to the fans – they were unbelievable, even at 4-0, singing the whole way, they deserved more today. We’ve had some brilliant away days recently, today was a very difficult one.”