Spaniard Roberto Martinez is a former Swansea City captain
Roberto Martinez has urged Swansea City fans to turn the Liberty Stadium into an intimidating fortress to succeed in their Championship play-off bid.
The Swans boss was unhappy with the atmosphere at the Liberty on Saturday as his team lost their second home game of the season 3-1 to Crystal Palace.
Martinez said: "There was an expectancy in the atmosphere around the ground of getting the three points.
"It doesn't happen like at Championship level, we have to fight together."
Swansea's 13,663 crowd to watch their defeat to Palace was their lowest Saturday afternoon crowd since their 1-1 draw with Burnley on 20 September last year.
Martinez, who played in Swansea's great escape from relegation to non-league in 2003 with a 4-2 final day win over Hull City, has now inspired the club to the brink of the Premier League and the verge of the Championship play-offs.
Last year's League One champions, who beat Premier League Portsmouth in an impressive FA Cup run, have earned universal praise for their attractive style of football.
And their defeat to Neil Warnock's Palace was just their second in 20 games.
Martinez, whose side dropped to eighth and three points outside the play-off zone, said: "Ten months ago we were playing at League One level and now we're expecting to turn up and win games very easily.
"The whole football club needs to fight together for every single point in the Championship.
"The environment was that we were accepting things today, as a football club we need to create a more intimidating atmosphere and we need to play with our head, not our hearts.
"We should pride ourselves on our performances not on our results and we have learned a lesson today."
Victor Moses and Jose Fonte gave Palace the advantage after the break before Gorka Pintado's consolation. Shefki Kuqi secured a Palace win in the fifth minute of injury time.
And while Martinez criticised Swansea's sloppy defending, he bemoaned Palace's negative tactics.
"The goals we gave away were well below our standards," he said.
"And though they worked hard to stop us playing they only had three shots on goal but scored three times.
"Crystal Palace were very well organised and as we all know the top six have found it difficult to get results because the opposition play in a very negative manner and in a very defensive way.
"Teams will come here and try to make it difficult for us and that is a great compliment but we need to find the solutions.
"They stopped us from playing, but we are better than that.
"We'll brush ourselves down but I expect the play-off battle to go to the end of the season."
Swansea now face two away trips to QPR on Tuesday and Sheffield Wednesday next Saturday.
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