I WAS sitting just metres away from Russell Martin in the press room at the Swansea.com Stadium as he was expectedly downcast.

His Swansea side had just thrown away an early lead to succumb to a 3-1 loss at the hands of Stoke City, as the South Wales side fell to their eighth defeat in 14 games.

In tough moments like this it’s not uncommon for coaches to deflect the blame towards their players, or even try, in vain, to convince those sitting in front of them that they are capable of turning things around.

But what I saw in front of me was not a manager willing to down tools during a tricky spell of results, but a personable coach willing to defend his players in the toughest patch of form.

When asked by a journalist if he thought his side had lost confidence in his methods, Martin rather annoyedly responded: “I disagree with you. The players were fighting for an equaliser until the end.

“Speak to the players, speak to the staff and they will feel the same. I think that’s a rather lazy assessment of things, but that’s your opinion and my opinion is very different.

“When you spend every day with the players you see the belief that they have. They are convinced with what they are doing, we are just in a tough moment and have a lot of young players.

READ MORE: Russell Martin plans to take Southampton 'back to where they belong'

“I take a look at what Arteta went through at Arsenal, I think they lost nine out of 10 matches at one point, and I take huge amount of inspiration from that.

“The only way you are going to get there with a young group is by experience, by learning and developing something to fall back on and analyse.”

I must admit, at the time I wasn't sure I bought into what Martin was saying.

A practicer of the Buddhism faith Martin follows the mantra ‘the more hard times, the more potential for beauty’ – a mindset that clearly aided the former Scotland international prove me and all the other doubters wrong by miraculously turning Swansea’s wavering form on its head.

Swansea closed out the season with a nine game unbeaten streak, seven of those being wins – missing out on an unlikely play off spot by three points.

Relegation to the Championship won't immediately wipe away the losing mentality inside the home dressing room at St Mary's, meaning Martin's first task will be instilling a new confidence which can help Saints bounce back to the Premier League.

It remains to be seen whether Martin can repeat this trick at Southampton, who like Swansea have a squad largely made up of players in the early stages of their professional careers.