Roberto Martinez discussion

[TommyDavo]

Not interested in the thread title, but this defence has relegation written all over it. That starts at Rom.

 

[toffeejack]

I hadn't realised that last year we scored less goals than the 8 previous seasons.

I mean, I knew we weren't firing but given he'd just bought lukaku for 28 million, ouch.

we were utter garbage. yet hit wolfsberg for 6!

 

[Goat]

if he was off, he'd have been dropped by now surely? it would make no sense to play some has been whilst holding back a younger, better alternative. I hope to god he does go, but why would he? He's arrogant, but even he must know he won't be playing for a team anywhere close to our ability if he were to move.

We will buy a Keeper, he will see his arse and koff to the US.

 

[RFUS]

I've lost faith in his ability to turn this around.

He can't half spot a player and get us playing great attacking football. Plus his ability to improve young players and attract higher calibre players has been great.

However he's shown nothing in his career as a manager to suggest he can turn around our defensive woes. I fear his first season was merely him reaping the rewards of Moyes' defence but improving our attack. But now we've become Wigan with better players.

We finally have a world class striker and we've gone from being a top 7 team to a mid table one. It's so frustrating and I just think that talking about the future is great and all, but if we don't seize the opportunity of the present then we'll be waving goodbye to the likes of Lukaku.

 

[By god I'm blue]

to be fair, we're not boring and tippy tappy this season. There are definitely similarities with wigan it must be said, we just have better players.

As I've seen in another place tonight, we are just an expensive Wigan at present.

 

[toffeejack]

My worrying thing about Martinez is, and i say this from the pit of my Main Stand seat, in where i was sat today, is that, even the older generation of blues, are screaming out the glaringly obvious things which he isn't picking up on. Today, for example, every time we had possession for the first 60-65 mins, Stoke had men clambering to get at us, throwing bodies in the way, and being committed, we, on the other hand, gave them so much freedom. Surely, this can't be a tactic?
Another issue, is the insistence in the whole 'Pass Pass Pass... hopefully the ball will end up in the net' tactic. It's crippling us. Kone (who admittedly didn't play well), had about 4 chances to shoot today, and went to pass, he's a centre forward for christ sake, why shouldn't he shoot? The fans being on his back for the majority, really doesn't help him, the fans are screaming to shoot, then when he tries, and his confidence is knocked, they moan louder.

I said to someone earlier that we sat and criticised Moyes for being One Dimensional, stubborn and backwards. Here we are, nearly going into 4 years without Moyes, and we find ourselves playing a more attacking, and exciting, yet utterly suicidal game of one dimensional football. My example was, what would you prefer? A run of mediocre 1-0 wins, but regardless of how dirty, it's a win, or a game like today? Pure attacking football, and conceded 7 goals in 2 home games and get 0 points?

My two examples of this are today, a 4-3 loss at home to stoke, where our stubborn manager (seen this before), refuses to drop the goalie, goalies fault for 3rd goal, brings momentum and we lose, despite exhilarating football OR a total defensive performance, of the ilk of our 1-0 away win at Spurs in November 2008, one attack, one goal, 36 shots at, but a clean sheet, and 3 points.

I don't want to turn on Martinez, but when is enough, enough? Love the entertainment, but in a season where Leicester are top, Palace are 5th and Watford 7th, is it really acceptable for us to be 11th? The excuses are running out, would a possible cup success, cloud over two sub-par league season? Not for me it won't.

probably because every time we try a slide tackle the ref gives a penalty against us.

 

[Coffee and TV]

I kept faith with him all of last season but I just feel like defense is something he can't fix. We can't win games conceding 4 at home.

 

[barneygumble]

The trouble is we gave Moyes 10 years and he delivered absolutely nothing in the terms of trophies, yet some were still happy with this, this sort of shows the ambition of some of our supporters.

100% agree.

I've got lots of ambition for the club, my club, our club, but what I don't want is fans using the Moyes tenure (and i'm massively anti-Moyes) as a reason to give the benefit to Martinez and his ineptitude. Fact is, so far this season, we've failed to take maximum points (or any points) from Leicester, Stoke, Palace, Watford or Liverpool at home. On paper, we should be beating Bournemouth, Norwich away, and should be doing great. We have a Top Class striker, in the form of his life, and excellent compliments in Deulofeu and Barkley to make us winners.
I'm not saying i'd have the Moyes regime back, but it's incredibly frustrating to have a side of our ilk, and our potential, being held back by Martinez. It's very hard to call it, because on the pro-Martinez side, Lukaku, Deulofeu, Barry are all excellent Martinez signings, who may not have came otherwise, and they clearly want to play for him. Whereas on the otherhand, you can see the potential, and get frustrated because we're not succeeding, this could be due to a number of things, but for me, it's down to the tactics, and his lack of interest in changing the style of play when the circumstances change. He like Moyes, evidentally has favourites, why isn't Howard dropped? When Joel comes in, he commands the box, he distributes quickly, and accurately and has a far greater calmness around his defenders, yet can't get in, how is that good for morale? Likewise, if we were to remove Martinez, who comes in? Remi Garde? Cause that's working out well.

 

[TheHumbleEgg]

We should be tight at the back but we just let teams come at us and cross for fun.
I lost count at the amount of crosses bournemouth put in the box.
The bottom line is martinez has not got a clue how to get us to defend as a team.

See, that sums it for me to a point.

BOB was described by someone as 'innovative' earlier in the thread. Yet that above - which is blob on BTW - tells me that HOWE is ahead of that innovation, because he's aware of what to do to combat it/us...

In turn it tells me that HUGHES is ahead of that today then too?

And the pattern's gonna repeat.

So you can't be THAT forward thinking/creative/original or..y'know, 'innovative'...when everyone else knows what ya gonna do.

 

[toffeejack]

We will buy a Keeper, he will see his arse and koff to the US.

i'd give all my christmas presents back as a sacrifice for that to happen if i could

...but erm, i don't have the receipts

Do you think he'll koff back to the US because he's had enough of our fans? I did have a right chuckle at the sarcastic applause when he claimed a cross without dropping. You don't see that very often from own supporters.

 

[The Esk]

I contend that nobody is, not with this board...barring a miracle, you're always going to run in to roadblocks. We just have to decide what kind of football we want to watch. Everything else is up to chance and luck.

True, except this Board is finished - it's just a question now of who replaces them and when. Perhaps not as imminent as others think but now within a reasonable time frame.

 

[evertony]

I know mate but watching the Spuds, they don't have better players than us IMO; however they have a solidity to their play with the attacking threat - question is why can't we have the same?

I think the biggest difference between us and Spurs is the goalkeeper....Lloris is easily in the top 3-4 in the Prem whereas Howard is in the bottom 3-4. I'd take Seamus and Brendan/Baines over Rose and Walker any day of the week, and certainly wouldn't see much difference between Stones/Mori/Jagielka and Alderweirald and Vertonghen. A good keeper saves you 10-12 points a seasons, ours costs us that.

 

[boris]

Yeah brenda was a joke.
The difference with moyes was he inherited an awful unbalanced squad with a relegation mindset while martinez inherited a great squad with a top 6/7 mindset and is taking us backwards

I agree with a lot of that but still don't think he's taking us backwards.

His signings have moved us forward by some distance & replaced old stalwarts with to class younger players IMO. The quality of our attacking play is outstanding.His points return at this stage are slightly better than 4 of Moyes's last 5 seasons (when Moyes was working with the cup final squad that many said was as good if not better than what we have now). We've also got semi final and its the first time we actually go into a semi final with a real chance of winning the thing. Martinez has definitely proved he can win these high pressure games when hammering Moyes's Everton at home with a much weaker squad than we have now and beating City twice with Wigan previously.

There's clearly a couple of big issues but I think the good outweighs the bad still by some distance whilst the Moyes years are being looked at through rose tinted glasses when reality it was no better than it is now.

I'll be asking for a change myself if I feel
Martinez has reached a ceiling but I don't think he has just yet.

 

[vagant59]

All this business about should be better than Stoke, Palace, West Ham and Watford etc is baffling....we're at the halfway stage and there's about 4-5 points difference between the lot of them. When Dancing Brave won the Arc he wasn't mentioned until the final furlong....just saying like.

I think you mean when he lost the derby

 

[Shagster]

I think the biggest difference between us and Spurs is the goalkeeper....Lloris is easily in the top 3-4 in the Prem whereas Howard is in the bottom 3-4. I'd take Seamus and Brendan/Baines over Rose and Walker any day of the week, and certainly wouldn't see much difference between Stones/Mori/Jagielka and Alderweirald and Vertonghen. A good keeper saves you 10-12 points a seasons, ours costs us that.

I agree but I believe potti' is the better coach