Martinez - Distractions no excuse

// A bit of a hack but it works// The article snippet is wrapped onto a second line, even when #article-sub is emptyif( $("div#article-sub").children().length == 0 ) {$("div#article-sub").remove();} Roberto Martinez refused to blame the headline-grabbing events in the lead up to Saturday's 4-0 loss at Portsmouth as the reason behind Wigan Athletic's poor performance. The Lancashire club were well below their usual best at Fratton Park as an Aruna Dindane hat-trick fired bottom-of-the-table Pompey to a much-needed three-point haul.Stories prior to the match had centred around alleged comments made by Martinez about Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson.Furthermore, on Thursday striker Marlon King was sacked by the club after he was sentenced to 18 months in prison after being found guilty of a nightclub attack on a young woman.But, despite the off-field matters, Martinez stated that his players simply underperformed against Pompey.When asked how much of an influence said events had on his charges, the Spaniard replied: "I would say none."You obviously don't want these sorts of events away from the pitch."We had too many probably this week, with one of the players getting sentenced, and all the paper talk.Let down"But that is not an excuse. We had enough time to prepare for the game. We knew it was going to be a very tough game."It (the Ferguson incident) is a situation that I never wanted to be involved with. I am not that sort of person."Sometimes you can avoid those situations. But that is not an excuse or a reason for the way that we performed."He continued: "To put it simply, we did not have any intensity, any clarity in our play on the ball."We knew that Portsmouth were going to start with tempo and throw everything at us. And we had to take the sting out of the game. We had to impose ourselves."We didn't do that. We were very poor in everything we did on the ball. When you do that it is quite difficult, especially away from home. Today on the ball we let ourselves down."We were never first in the second balls. And when we had possession we couldn't find the right pattern and our intensity in our play really let us down."Portsmouth scored at the right times and deserved to win."

Source: SKY_Sports