Martinez Aims For Top 6 Finish Next Season

Roberto Martinez insists he won't change the way his side play next season and is aiming for a top 6 finish 'at least'.

The Swansea boss has implemented a different and exciting style of continental football to the squad which we, the fans, have had the fortune of watching for the past 2 years.

As a result, many opposition managers and TV pundits have complimented our way of playing and have referred to us as the best footballing side in the Championship.

Martinez is looking to go one better next season after we narrowly missed out on the play-offs this year. To do that, he insists his side will not change the way they play, and instead they'll simply improve their strengths to outshine their weaknesses.

The Spaniard told Wales Online:

"We won a League One place by playing good football - we didn`t have to be physical,"

"And what we must do to succeed in the Championship is become better at what we are good at.

"We have been very, very good at certain things — things you would only see from Swansea City at Championship level.

"We need to polish that and make sure our strengths outshine our weaknesses to give ourselves a great chance of finishing in the top six at least."

"We have been very good at certain things this season - but what we don`t want to do is try to improve our weaknesses," said Martinez, with the weaknesses perceived to be that of a physical nature and a lack of being able to mix in the rough stuff.

"If we try and do that we will just become an average side.

"You cannot have it both ways in football. If you try to become good at everything, you just become average.

"We`ve seen many teams this season who are quite similar - and by doing what we`re good at we`ve been able to cause them problems. But we can get better and we will.

"We should be even better to watch next year. We had a run of home games this season, against Fulham, Reading, Preston, Ipswich and Doncaster, where we were very, very good.

"But we can get even better and we can do it consistently throughout the next campaign."

Martinez's approach to management is quite unique in the English leagues. Not many managers look for performances over results, or would prefer to lose playing well, than win playing poorly.

Swansea City particularly impressed in front of a wide audience when they faced Premiership side Fulham at the Liberty Stadium in front of the ITV cameras. We outplayed them for large periods of the game, showing our slick passing style of play, and even then you could argue that we've performed even better than we did in that FA Cup tie.

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