Relegation Fight 2014/2015

[mrb85]

End of the day, managers are there to manage.

I'd have zero respect for Martinez if he had them going route one just to pacify a load of local hacks, feeding off forums like this, in order to save his job.

I'd rather he continue to stand by his passing game, get the necessary points we need (impossible almost not to now), get to the summer and then get the players out who have misfired badly and the players in who he sees as good enough to recapture the first season form.

But his passing game is boring, one-paced, and totally without product. So what's the point in it?

 

[mrb85]

Dave it's statements like this which do you no good.

1) nobody has asked for route 1, people have have asked for a higher intensity, higher pressing game, like against City. You keep confusing this with long ball

2) we aren't playing a passing game, a passing game as an end product, we mind the ball until the opposition score. It's not pretty and not good, and it certainly isn't a passing game. Again you've confused a passing game with aimless possession

Succinctly put.

 

[Jags..class]

But his passing game is boring, one-paced, and totally without product. So what's the point in it?

Its not the passing that boring, its the players who can't spot decent passes and no clever running into spaces to receive the pass.

 

[paulbefc]

Howard, Distin, Jagielka, Coleman, Baines, Barry, Mirallas, Pienaar, Barkley.

All players that played well last season and are being asked to do the same job this and have been sh**. Howard was great last season but seemed to let the president calling him and US Seceretary of Defence rubbish get to his head and has now made the most errors leading to goals in the league this season. Baines and Jagielka seemingly suffered from WC ctiticism. Distin, part of the 3rd tightest defensive partnership las year with Jags, finally lost it which has hurt us more due to Stones' injury and apparently a poor attitude. Barry has been a completely different player after being superb for nearly every minute of last season, Mirallas appears to have a poor attitude, strangely morphing from looking a world beater away at west ham to utter tosh following deadline day. Pienaar has been injured for the whole thing and Barkley seems to have gone back to being the rabbit in the headlights he was at 17 since returning from the injury on the eve of the first game.

The only one of the above who has played a different position is Barkley, who has usually played about 12 yards to the right or left of his favourite position, doing a pretty similar job and still been sh** whether played there or in his natural position. He has had to be dropped for a far inferior player who actually plays with an ounce of determination.

Meanwhile, we've played the exact same 4-2-3-1 formation all season as we did last bar a few games since xmas in which we've experimented the slight change to 3 in midfield.

We have also continued the possession-based style and passing from the back, regardless of formation.

If there's huge tactical changes he's made that could realistically account for pretty much halving last year's points total I must have missed them. I don't believe he looked at the most important causes of our success last season eg. using full backs as important attackers and goal threats, and thought "I know, I'll change this".

The style can clearly still work. We've underperformed in it though sadly and we need the summer break to sort league form out. I'm by no means absolving RM of all responsibility though. Trusting Distin and Barry to keep up their levels were some of Martinez' biggest and admittedly many mistakes and they have cost us. He should have played Besic over Barry more, for example. I am also 100% against his handling of the gk situation.

 

[daz4matty]

End of the day, managers are there to manage.

I'd have zero respect for Martinez if he had them going route one just to pacify a load of local hacks, feeding off forums like this, in order to save his job.

I'd rather he continue to stand by his passing game, get the necessary points we need (impossible almost not to now), get to the summer and then get the players out who have misfired badly and the players in who he sees as good enough to recapture the first season form.

The manager is not managing though he is lost mate.
As for the passing the sideways slow backwards rubbish is killing us.
A note to martinez every football man in the country knows how to stop us playing either lose your arrogance and change it or you will be booted out.

 

[mrb85]

Its not the passing that boring, its the players who can't spot decent passes and no clever running into spaces to receive the pass.

I agree with the lack of running into space. But you don't seem to have cottoned on to the fact that RMs obsession with retaining possession automatically translates into not taking any risks in losing possession, hence the clear reluctance for any player (now even Barkley) to make a pass that might be cut out, however easy it looks from the stands to go ahead and make that pass. Rather Martinez instructs the team to just re-work possession until a good, incisive pass comes with no risk at all attached to making it.

 

[paulbefc]

I agree with the lack of running into space. But you don't seem to have cottoned on to the fact that RMs obsession with retaining possession automatically translates into not taking any risks in losing possession, hence the clear reluctance for any player (now even Barkley) to make a pass that might be cut out, however easy it looks from the stands to go ahead and make that pass. Rather Martinez instructs the team to just re-work possession until a good, incisive pass comes with no risk at all attached to making it.

This seems to happen with every manager of every style. Supporters like to use his approach to management as a stick to beat him with in every possible situation.

With Moyes, Barkley was apparently terrified of making a mistake because Moyes apparently coached the flair out of players. It was clearly nothing to do with Barkley, apparently.

When Martinez came in and played him and got the best out of him, it was supposedly fantastic and he was doing what we apparently all knew all along he would if played right.

Now Barkley's bang out of form, it's gone full circle and now Martinez has supposedly made Barkley terrified of making mistakes and is coaching the talent out of him.

Maybe Ross Barkley has confidence issues that are his own problem.

 

[eddy]

The manager is not managing though he is lost mate.
As for the passing the sideways slow backwards rubbish is killing us.
A note to martinez every football man in the country knows how to stop us playing either lose your arrogance and change it or you will be booted out.

I agree with the above, he cannot or will not change his style of play, we are so easy to play against and predict. Newcastle will do what every other team has done, sit back, watch us pass it about until one of our players loses possesion under pressure and hit us on the break, wait and see, so predictable! I really hope Im wrong and if so, I will eat my words, I hope we give them a stuffing, just cant see it with this deranged,stubborn, ego-maniac in charge!

 

[davek]

I think it was a season too far for Distin, but the lack of defensive drilling is obvious and as Ossie confirmed they never even work on set piece defending, and it shows. We've defended poorly as a team, a lack of closing down, losing the 2nd balls, a lack of organisation, getting caught short of numbers as we've left ourselves over exposed, has all combined to leave us defensively poor this season. To lay the blame at the feet of Jags is ridiculous

Ridiculous? To expect the captain at the heart of defence to do some organising? Pffft!

First act in the summer for me: get rid of that puddin'. He's about as useful as a chocolate fireguard.

 

[davek]

At last, a proper opportunity to have a conversation.

IMO the entire setup of the opposition has changed, and this where he his having trouble adapting. And the evidence is in the games.

You look at the teams we've moved the ball freely like last year, a couple of times throughout the entire season with young boys being the last. The first time I witnessed it was Arsenal (legs killed us) then Aston villa at home.

All these terms were open against, wanted to play their game and no stifle us, and we picked them off with ease. The teams who press us high then fall back into a defensive unit have caused us major concern all season. Yet we've approached every game the same, and that's where the frustration as boiled over, literally same thing game in game out.

Now surely any sane person would have tried to change something, even the personnel; you said yourself.

This is why he's put his own job on the line and up for scrutiny, his inability to adapt and change. All you need to do is look across the park to see what a change can do. Even Utd are struggling with his squad, not as bad us, because VGL is determined to shoe horn people into his system, only when he goes long are the snatching late points.

He's not an inexperienced PL, he may be young, but he has a lot of experience and does not need a learning curve. He's making the same mistakes as he made at Wigan

He can go one of two ways to counteract these spoiling tactics: 1/ he can almost completely change his style of play to become a different type of team to the one he's had it as his plan to build here at Everton (no chance given his views...and, tbf, no chance for any manager worth their salt and who isn't in the game just to keep their job week to week); 2/ he can stick with his system and tinker with the personnel. He's obviously chosen option 2 and, putting it mildly,it hasn't worked out.

This is my overarching point about Martinez: he needs to gut that team in the summer. I was in the vanguard earlier this season on here pillorying him for not starting the deconstruction of the Moyes team back last summer. Because if he's to use his system he cant adapt players who are not up to it. He needed to replace those CBs in particular to start that transition away from the old era to his. He didn't do it. But that still means, for me, that it's down to getting the right people in the starting XI and the need now has become greater than it was last summer. MoutsGoat's jibe to me about Martinez wasting a whole season is one I find hard to argue against. It's been exactly that. 12 months down the toilet.

The conclusion I draw though is that going on about right and wrong systems is to not see the wood for the trees: if the players aren't there then the system - any system - is doomed. We have a manager in charge who's had this sobering experience and should know what needs to be done next season in the transfer market to put this back on track again. If he doesn't and we continue in this form, of course he'd have to lose his job. But he's shown what can be achieved when you get the right blend of players. We have to trust he can do that again...and we certainly have to give him that opportunity to achieve it.

 

[Foot Long Hot Dog]

Ridiculous? To expect the captain at the heart of defence to do some organising? Pffft!

First act in the summer for me: get rid of that puddin'. He's about as useful as a chocolate fireguard.

Thank God you're not in the hot seat. Jags is a quality defender and the stats prove it.

http://www.squawka.com/football-pla...03/2015#season#1#all-matches#total#desc#total

 

[trebilcock66]

This seems to happen with every manager of every style. Supporters like to use his approach to management as a stick to beat him with in every possible situation.

With Moyes, Barkley was apparently terrified of making a mistake because Moyes apparently coached the flair out of players. It was clearly nothing to do with Barkley, apparently.

When Martinez came in and played him and got the best out of him, it was supposedly fantastic and he was doing what we apparently all knew all along he would if played right.

Now Barkley's bang out of form, it's gone full circle and now Martinez has supposedly made Barkley terrified of making mistakes and is coaching the talent out of him.

Maybe Ross Barkley has confidence issues that are his own problem.

If a player of Barkley's age has confidence issues, that's the manager's problem. He has to work out what makes the lad tick and give him sufficient courage to play without fear. If RM could work that out, Ross would become the best player he could be. But it's deffo the manager's territory

 

[Chang Elephant]

Jagielka, Coleman, Baines, Mirallas, Barkley.

Questions need to be asked why decent players are playing crap

Howard, Distin, Barry

Questions need to be asked why crap players are playing

 

[davek]

The manager is not managing though he is lost mate.
As for the passing the sideways slow backwards rubbish is killing us.
A note to martinez every football man in the country knows how to stop us playing either lose your arrogance and change it or you will be booted out.

Remember last season when everyone (well, not you obviously) was applauding all Martinez's statments about getting an arrogance about the players and club to take on the pitch and achieve?

Now it's seen not as something to instil confidence in what you're doing, but something that's blinkered and damaging.

All about timing, I expect.

 

[royvernon39]

The conclusion I draw though is that going on about right and wrong systems is to not see the wood for the trees: if the players aren't there then the system - any system - is doomed.

Lord Fergie wrote that managers have to work with the players they have at their disposal and that philosophies do not come into it. You can't make a purse out of a sow's ear so to speak.

The one thing where I see RM's hand this season is the so-slow attacking style. But even that can be explained in part by the presence of Naismith, mcCarthy, and Besic players who cannot make long passes.