Russell Martin | We want to underline the progress we have made over the season

Russell Martin hopes Saturday’s fixture against play-off pushing Nottingham Forest will underline the positive progress Swansea City have made across the season.

The Swans went through a tough opening to the campaign, winning only two matches from the first 10, with head coach Martin only being appointed six days before the start of the Championship campaign.

Given the circumstances – and a subsequent loss of game time and meaningful training work due to Covid-19 – it has inevitably been a season of transition for the Swans.

However, there is a huge difference from August to now, with Martin’s men currently equalling the club’s best unbeaten record since August 2019 with a nine-match sequence without defeat.

Despite that, it will undoubtedly be a tough task for the Swans when they face a Forest side who are the form team in the Championship and are battling to snatch an automatic promotion spot.

“Forest have got a really strong squad and they’ve recruited really well in January,” Martin said.

“Steve Cooper has done a brilliant job since he’s gone in there to galvanise them and get them moving in the right direction. They’ve built momentum now.

“They’ve got some outstanding players at this level who possess real athleticism. So, it’s going to be tough, they’ve been on an incredible run and possess a real threat in certain areas and we’ll have to be aware of that.

“I thought we were really good in the first game against them. We should have scored early and we didn’t; I think we’ll have learned a lot from that.

“So I’m really looking forward to it. It’s a game for the guys to be really excited about.

“The squad want to pick up as many points as possible and try to squeeze into the top half which we’re really close to. 

“From where we were at the start of the season to where we are now has been a really big change and hopefully you can see that against Forest on Saturday.”