Swansea City must cope with criticism of style, says Russell Martin

Russell Martin's Swansea drew at Rotherham on the opening day of the season

Russell Martin says Swansea City will have to cope with criticism over their style of football from rival Championship clubs.

Swansea were beaten 3-0 by Blackburn Rovers in their opening home game of the season.

Martin said there were "a few comments" about his side's possession-based approach from the Rovers bench.

"The way we play isn't always going to please everyone," the Swansea head coach said.

"I think pretty much everyone out of Swansea hates it because they're desperate to stop it and beat it.

"Even a few comments from their bench towards it tells me the mentality towards it, because we dare to try and control things and pass the ball. That's their prerogative."

Swansea had 71% of possession against Blackburn and had five shots to Rovers' four.

But it was the Lancashire club who claimed what was ultimately a comfortable 3-0 victory to give new boss Jon Dahl Tomasson six points from his first two games in charge.

When asked whether the criticism he referred to was of Swansea's style, Martin added: "Yeah, or an opinion of us as people which really doesn't bother me because they don't know me one bit.

"But it's what you get when you play a certain way, a certain style of football here in the Championship.

"It's not a problem. We have to make sure we are successful."

Former Malmo boss Tomasson insisted he had no problem with Swansea's approach.

"I think they played a good football game so I have nothing to complain about regarding that," he said.

"We played against a good side today who are strong on the ball so that's why I chose to control the game out of possession."

Swansea's fans showed their frustration at times during the Blackburn defeat, which leaves Martin's team with one point from their first two games of the new season.

"I really admire the lads sticking to it when it did get a little bit tetchy," Martin added.

"I understand that. Expectancy has gone up from last season - we've had more time to work with the players.

"We need to stick together, work really hard and try to find solutions to the problems we faced today."