The team lost only one game of the final six, a run which began with the inspirational performance against Blackpool at Bloomfield Road.
Once Martinez settled on his strongest side the team developed strongly and started to perform as a group and the high level of continuity will be a big bonus for the club for the forthcoming season. This stability has been rarely replicated by the Latics since promotion to the top flight over seven years ago with a large number of summer moves common place at the DW Stadium.
Since the end of last season only Tom Cleverley and Charles N'Zogbia have left the club with Ali Al-Habsi's move made permanent and David Jones signed for free to add depth to the central midfield area.
Such continuity will allow players like Momo Diame, Ben Watson, and James McCarthy to gel and add greater stability to the midfield. Then there is Victor Moses who looks set to ignite the Wigan Athletic
forward play should his five pre-season goals be anything to go by.
Of course there is always room to add talent to any squad and the sale of Charles N'Zogbia will be a strong loss for the Latics but Martinez has admitted that he is hopeful of making a number of additions before the end of the transfer window. It is likely that the Latics boss will pull a rabbit out of the hat before the end of August as he presently has £9.5 million burning a hole in his pocket.
With the final pre season game resulting in a respectible victory for the Latics against Villarreal and the opening fixture against Norwich now less than a week away the empasis must be on the present squad of players at the club who are more than capable of getting a result.
With Moses purring, Diame, Watson and McCarthy gelling, and Rodallega rested from the Copa America there should be plenty of optimism going into the start of the season.
With any luck I'll be writing next week about a fantastic victory, Martinez splashing a sizeable sum of the £9.5 million N'Zogbia money, and the delight at a spate of new contract deals for key players...
Here's to hoping.
