Glad Ive just turned 30 so Im old enough to be taken seriously now...
I dont want Martinez out. For the most part, we have improved, going forward especially. I got my first season ticket when Walter Smith was in charge, and well remember games where we would play with four centre halves across the back and two full backs on the wings...if simply missing chances was our problem, I could live with that. Palace and Swansea stand out in particular as games where we completely dominated but just ept missing chances, which can happen to anybody. My problem with Martinez is that he needs to learn when something isnt working, or risk being a stubborn 'my way or the highway' parody of himself like Moyes did.
There are 3 things that Martinez needs to seriously look at himself over:
1) Favourites. Moyes annoyed the hell out of me doing this for years. His defence of Howard borders on insanity, and dropping Robles for him last season was unforgiveable, but we've gone over that a lot of time now. There have been times too where players are clearly struggling for form (a la Barkley and Barry last season) and while we had other players available, they needed to be taken out of the side. But they're his favourites too so they have to start. And then on the flip side, we have players like Mirallas, Naismith, Eto'o, Distin, Gibson etc. who if rumours are to be believed are not being used at all and are starting to get the hump about it. Last few games especially, the likes of Kone, Cleverley and Baines have looked tired after recovering from injuries, but have been left on, rather than using the chance to take them off and give some the lesser used players some game time. When Kone did get a rest too against Boro, Martinez played Cleverley out of position, rather give a chance to Mirallas, Lennon or Naismith.
2) Sort of on the same topic, the subs. I dont know whats happened here, as in his first season, his subs were boss. How many games did we turn around after some pretty creative subs? We've had one or two of those this season too, Kone on the opening day and at West Brom, and Naismith against Chelsea, but for the most part, the subs we make are totally baffling. Both of today's especially. Neither of the replacements were necessarily wrong, but what exactly were we trying to do taking off Barkley and Deulofeu, our two most creative players? Especially when Cleverley and Kone were knackered by this point?
3) Set pieces. Stats dont always tell the full story, but in this case, they absolutely do. We dont score them, we cant defend them. We've scored one set piece all season at Bournemouth, and we look like conceding from every single one. It is now such an obvious weakness, teams are hammering us with crosses and taking advantage of us at corners. Look at the Arsenal game, Ive never seen a team throw so many high balls at us, not exactly something you associate with Arsenal, but it was obvious that was their best way to beat us.
All three of these desperately need to change, because right now, they are holding us back and just undoing all the good he is doing for us. Despite a few games where we are missing chances, scoring hasnt been a problem for us at all. We are the third highest scorers in the League behind City and Leicester. We also however have the joint worst defence in the top 10 and have only kept 4 clean sheets in the League, only one of them since September against an abysmal Villa side. Im sure I saw a stat last week too that we have conceded the most headed goals in the League, which further backs up our set piece problems.
