Roberto Martinez discussion

Status
Not open for further replies.
e

I wouldn't overstate the case though. It seems to me there's a small vocal minority who'd like to see Martinez out the door full stop. Most of his other critics, though, grumble at the draws rather than wins, but realise we have a manager that has us moving quickly in the right direction and they know that we have the right man in place.

The difference in approach between the former and latter is that the former have been weaned on the hopelessly outdated Moyes school of agricultural 'football' and see any Everton team playing football on the deck as an abomination - basically they want a hoof into the mixer and a towering header as the ball comes out of the clouds. The latter group are (reasonably for the most part) impatient for the great one touch football to bar more fruit more quickly.

What we're hearing from the Martinez out lot is basically the death rattle of hoofball at the club. On the pitch, Roberto has almost completely seen off this 'method' of play...and he's increasingly put it out of the consciousness of most Evertonians. He's made astonishing progress in just two and a half years.

Now that you point it out I start to realize that we played that tosh not too long ago. Better places now.
 


Yes, Bobby, the football can be cruel...but that's everywhere in life....u re only as good as ur weakest link which will always be exposed and eventually broken...
 
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.
Quality post that mate.im a fan of martinez but we have a couple of glaring weaknesses holding us back . I'd say the fitness of the players needs addressing because we seem to totally run out of gas after an hour. Especially ross and gerry which is alarming considering their age
 

[QUOTE="LinekersLegs, post: 4038265, member: 24162" flail around looking for a new one[/QUOTE]

see what I did there.
by editing my post you took the end bit out of context to enhance your view.

my point was how long are we going to be saying...lets wait until these first 10 'hard' games are over
Now it's wait until the end of Jan, pretty soon there will be no more time left to wait and it will be. lets see how we do in the window and get the first 'x' games out of the way and off we go again.

so to address your point Re. 'Flail around', which I didn't say, mention or imply, but if I were discussing 'changes' they would not and need not be of the flail around variety.

Slight change in emphasis, a few tweaks, a tune up...what I call 'The Goldilocks Option'
not too much Moyes, not too much Martinez, but just right.
If Martinez can't or won't change and we remain in contention for the 7th-ish Trophy.
Then it goes along way to confirming my point which is

Martinez is just a Catalan version of bang average, a different flavour to Moyes but with the same or poorer end result.

my other point, oft stated, is that unless we go totally Mike Walker or there is a major boardroom shake up, is that He, like Moyes before him, has a job for life.

Clear enough?...Now that's my FULL context.
 

Status
Not open for further replies.

Welcome

Join Grand Old Team to get involved in the Everton discussion. Signing up is quick, easy, and completely free.

Shop

Back
Top