BEST IS YET TO COME
SWANS BOSS MARTIN SAYS FRENCH ACE NTCHAM WILL BE A KEY PLAYER NEXT TERM AFTER GOAL CAME0
RUSSELL Martin is confident that Swansea City will see the best of Olivier Ntcham next season following his disrupted debut campaign at the club.
The former Celtic man struck his fourth goal of the season to earn the Swans a point against Barnsley yesterday. It came after the 26-year-old once again started on the bench before proving inspirational late on in the second half.
And Martin has revealed Ntcham has been unable to start of late owing to his faith.
“We started with the same team [from the Derby win] because they deserved to play. They’ve been brilliant. Olivier is probably not quite in a position to start. He’s going through Ramadan,” said the head coach.
“He’s practising his religious beliefs and can’t eat during the day, so it makes it difficult to be at full energy for 90 minutes, so we have to choose when and where to use him. Whenever he’s come on as a sub, games like West Brom, Barnsley earlier on in the season, he’s been brilliant.
“I’m pleased for him. It’s a great finish. He has such technical quality. The frustration for us with Oli, he didn’t have a pre-season, he came in really late, got into a groove and then got injured. It’s just been a bit stopstart for him.
“Next season, with a full pre-season and a year playing in the Championship, I expect him to be a really top player.”
The Swans controlled long periods of the contest against the Tykes, but struggled to ask too many questions in the final third until Ntcham’s stunning equaliser after the hour mark. His effort came after Claudio Gomes drilled the Yorkshire club in front, with Poya Asbaghi’s men showing plenty of spirit in their quest to beat the drop.
And Martin believes his players lacked the composure required to extend their winning run.
“It lacked the energy and intensity of the last three games. It’s a really poor goal to concede, when you go 1-0 down and get yourself back in it and make sure we don’t lose, the mentality was good there,” added Martin.
“I think we’ll learn a lot from today, especially ahead of next season. It was a different pressure on the guys.
I don’t like using that word, but there was an expectancy from us with the form we’ve been in to beat a team near the bottom of the table, but it never happens like that.
“Every game in this league is really difficult. It’ll be a really good learning tool for us.
“It’s really frustrating that we’ve dropped two points. We had some great chances at the end. We lacked a bit of composure and calmness. We got caught up in the frenzy of the game which it had turned into at that point.
“When we scored it was in the balance. It was really open which doesn’t really suit us, but we had to attack the game. After that I thought they were really tired with the amount of work we put into them with the ball. I thought we’d be strong enough to score.
“The referee was really good today, but we should have had a penalty at the end with the handball. It’s frustrating. I’m sure everyone feels frustrated, but we will use it to learn and improve, and we’re still unbeaten in six games.”
Swansea return to action against Reading on Monday at the Select Car Leasing Stadium.