We need a rethink...

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The problem is there are so many players out of form, and then there are the injured. It's almost impossible to pick a team.

Just look at today's performance, it's hard to say who not to drop.

Howard - One save, otherwise left flapping.

Distin - Off the pace, poor in the air.

Jagielka - Left scrambling to recover several times.

Coleman - Poor control, poor passing, disappeared.

Baines - An equal opportunity passer, didn't seem to discriminate between teams.

Bešić - Love the lad, but he's raw, and likely to be suspended shortly.

Barry - Glacial.

Barclay - Trys. Will get there one day. Just not happening now. And we need now.

Eto'o - Loosing the ball more than Barclay. You can see the class, which makes the lack of it all the more frustrating.

Naismith - Can't fault his effort, but just didnt click. Could probably blame those around him.

Lukaku - Flashes. Needs more solid output. Will get there, but another we need going now.

Martinez had got his work cut out for him sorting this mess, that's for sure.
 
....................Howard..................
Coleman...Stones...Jagielka...Baines
............McCarthy.....Barkley.........
Mirallas...........Naismith.......Garbutt
......................Lukaku..................

Have Garbutt learn his trade infront of Baines the way Coleman did infront of Hibbert or Neville for years. He can take a corner and his link-up play is good, plus perfect cover for when Baines goes forward. Naismith benefited against QPR when Barkley played from the center of the park.

or something completely different

....................Howard...........
..........Stones..Jagielka...Barry.....
Coleman...McCarthy...Barkley...Baines
....................Naismith...........
...............Lukaku......Mirallas........
 
In all honesty I still have faith in our style of play, I don't think it's our problem. Our line ups and players just don't suit our style.

Our full backs are fine, both Seamus and Leighton aren't preforming at their best or at the level they did last season but both are class, best full back duo in the league.

The centrebacks are a massive problem, last season we seen Stones come from no where to just miss the World Cup squad for England, he works so well in our team, he's a good athlete, can play him self out of trouble and has the ability to play the forward pass that gets us open and on. Now what is often not talked about is our front four (Strker, CAM and wingers) all push up really high so do our full backs. There's always times during the match were our center halves are left man on man with the striker, because we often play with such a high line we give the oppisition a lot of space to work into. Jags most of the time is really good at stopping that attacker like how he did with Long in the first half today. Distin used to be great at this, would always use his strengh to hold them up and then his speed to beat them to the ball. Thats why we were really solid at the back last season. Distin is now very poor when he's got a man running at him and I thnk Jags has lost faith in him too, Jags posistioning of late has been really poor and I think that's because he feels he's going to need to help Distin out, that's why we've been so narrow and why Jags and Distin are often way closer than they have to be. We need a defender who is good on the ball, can play a pass, is athletic but needs to be really good in a man on man situation. Stones ticks all those boxes I feel but we're still going to need another CB.

Now i know quite a few people aren't fans of having two DM's but I don't have a problem with it, especially if it's McCarthy and or Besic their both do offer support going forward too. Now the idea of this is to give the centrebacks support so Coleman and Baines can commit forward and so our wingers and CAM don't need to worry about the deference as much and can take more risks because we've got those two mids behind the ball. The whole problem right now is we're not utilizing these licences to attack. Instead of our wingers running at players they keep trying to play inside because we're not playing actual wingers and we haven't been playing Ross at CAM which would be and has been when played perfectly suited to these tactics. Barry hasn't been as good as last year and we've missed McCarthy to in saying all that though. In a nutshell two defensive mids works really well when used the right way like we did last season with Ross behind Lukaku and played with two actual wingers giving them a licence.

Today Bobby had two choices play with our structues and players in their correct position Eto or Lukaku striking, Ross or Naisy in behind and McGeady and Pienaar on the wings or we can line up with how we did today putting our best four available attacking players in. Now I can understand the dilemma, If he did play with everyone in their positions everyone would have been saying why are Pienaar and McGeady starting over Eto and Naisy and everyone would be raging over that, the reason Bobby isn't playing with natural wingers is because we don't have any (Other than Mirallas) good enough so I get why he's forced to play with out two natural wingers (I still would have started McGeady in saying that). It's still Bobby's fault though, this is exactly why we needed to sign a winger in the summer window.

As for Lukaku we all know his touch is crap, we knew that last season and we new it when we spent 28m on him. He's 21, he's going to have his weaknesses which we're working on, you've gotta give it time. A striker in the Premier League has to be able to hold the ball up yes BUT that's not what he's in the team for, he's in the team to score goals. We've got Barkley and Eto who can play behind him, we also have Coleman and Baines on the flanks who can whip the ball in but we are simply no creating enough chances for him to finish, plain and simple.
 

its more than that, i actually see the whole team being bad at the minute. managers fault maybe as I dont see the movement from them, they do the same passes to the same players and the players do the same turns they did last week in the same position its crazy. all teams then already know our positions on the pitch and they work a fast game plan to get through us once we inevitably lose possession and we have 5 6 players close to each other in their box and the other team runs at our shaky defense who which I cant quite believe always look like conceding every attack they face and which happens a lot now make errors on the first blasted shot and we go a goal down. any team is putting away their one or two chances every time while we cant hit a barn door after 20 wasted shots or attempts. laboured and slow with poor touches plays into the the other teams hands and we are messing up big style. I am a hardened supporter but I have stopped watching the matches after 10 mins as I see nothing has changed in the players skill level or application or if they are trying to rectify whats going wrong, they havent so if they can't be bothered I am not going to watch and get annoyed at another poor performance. Its quite shocking really, lose the fear play differently and stop picking the same players doing the same crap each match, at least lose trying and introducing new elements too help the team for the future and next matches. nothing is happening, who is in charge martinez or the poor playing players.??
 
We've got the middle of the park sorted, we just need to find a way to speed up our attacking game and become a bit more penetrative. We need to basically get service to Lukaku. We have a top class finisher there who we aren't getting enough out of. Last season the full backs were much more of a threat and in the games where we've done well this season, such as Wolfsburg at home and Villa at home, they've been a big part of our attacking threat.

We're also not performing defensively. However, I'm hopeful that Stones' return will improve our passing from the back and relieve the pressure on the back 4. McCarthy will also help this.

We need width to our game it appears. That's where the manager got it hopelessly wrong today, imo. I hope today is a bit of a wake-up call for him and he doesn't try the Barkley-Naismith-Eto'o trio again. Thank God Kevin's injury isn't serious.

On the last point, the worrying thing is that he's yet to see that that trio simply doesn't work. I defy anyone to understand Martinez's selections and the lack of balance in his sides this season. Just what is going on in his head?
 
The problem is there are so many players out of form, and then there are the injured. It's almost impossible to pick a team.

Just look at today's performance, it's hard to say who not to drop.

Howard - One save, otherwise left flapping.

Distin - Off the pace, poor in the air.

Jagielka - Left scrambling to recover several times.

Coleman - Poor control, poor passing, disappeared.

Baines - An equal opportunity passer, didn't seem to discriminate between teams.

Bešić - Love the lad, but he's raw, and likely to be suspended shortly.

Barry - Glacial.

Barclay - Trys. Will get there one day. Just not happening now. And we need now.

Eto'o - Loosing the ball more than Barclay. You can see the class, which makes the lack of it all the more frustrating.

Naismith - Can't fault his effort, but just didnt click. Could probably blame those around him.

Lukaku - Flashes. Needs more solid output. Will get there, but another we need going now.

Martinez had got his work cut out for him sorting this mess, that's for sure.
Madkiwi, you're completely off track here -- Martinez is the problem, not the one to sort it out. We are a mess all over the pitch and the ultimate responsibility lies with the manager who has given no indication that he knows what he's doing now the wheels have fallen off.
 
Playing against Everton is far too easy... A season's worth of DVDs and 40-odd matches to watch, it's obvious we have been figured out.

This is the way I see it:


Unless you're Chelsea, City etc., then you won't have the players to deal with us man-to-man. Give us space and we'll tear you apart.

So you do what QPR and Hull did (I thought QPR were really unlucky on Monday).

2 banks of 4 that barely move, and always stay in 2 flat lines. Your back four cover the whole pitch between 6-yard line and the edge of the box, basically defending the penalty box, not letting anyone get into it - and shifting side to side depending which wing we're attacking down.

Then your midfield 4 cover box to box, always in a line, and you don't have wingers really, your LM and RM's job is to stop Baines and Coleman breaking through.

Stop Baines and Coleman from overlapping, cover the pass down to the corner flags, make the middle crowded and we'll just do all that side-to-side and backwards passing that annoys us all so much.

Then you know that our defence is shaky, and Howard can't save anything at the moment; so if you've got some decent attackers (or just one) then you'll get chances.

Something's got to give, we need a change.
 

Vitor+Pereira+FC+Porto+v+Vitoria+Guimaraes+8LfR4IyI_73l.jpg
 
I have no problem with a passing game, but don't see the point in passing it for the sake of passing it. That's essentially what we're doing here under Martinez this season. Most of the time there's absolutely no end product to it. We've been found out by our opponenents and Bobby should fix that pronto. Everton have become the most boring team to watch in the English leagues atm. At least that's my opinion. This simply isn't good enough señor Martinez.
 
When you're struggling for form and you manage to win a game, you should stick with the winning team as much as possible. Mirallas was injured so we couldn't do much about that but nothing else should have changed. There was no need to bring Barry in when Barkley and Besic did so well on Monday.
 
Madkiwi, you're completely off track here -- Martinez is the problem, not the one to sort it out. We are a mess all over the pitch and the ultimate responsibility lies with the manager who has given no indication that he knows what he's doing now the wheels have fallen off.

While the manager does have ultimate responsibility, I can't think of one player today that performed up to standard. And there weren't many on the bench that I could see doing better. Except some of the injured.

I don't see changing managers just to satisfy a desire for blood as sensible. Yet.

When you're struggling for form and you manage to win a game, you should stick with the winning team as much as possible. Mirallas was injured so we couldn't do much about that but nothing else should have changed. There was no need to bring Barry in when Barkley and Besic did so well on Monday.

Home vs Away. No need for two holding players when playing at home against an inferior side. That's my take.

Of course when Barry is folding more than holding you're in trouble.

Very interested in what reaction and consequences there are Boxing Day. They are needed to keep the faith.
 

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