Again, there's an individual excuse for everything, but when you add them up the collective answer does not come out as you'd expect. If all of the above were true we would not have had 18 months in the bottom half.
I don't agree on Gibson, he's been fit for a while now but barely seen, he could have been used off the bench. Oviedo is playing now but when fit has been benched behind Galloway at times.
No problem if he wanted to sell Fellaini, Naismith etc. But combine this with Mirallas not being favoured (why?) and Gibson not used then you haves gap in the middle of the squad age wise. This has resulted in some lineups this season and last being completely inexperienced or some line ups frankly too old to compete in this league. No coincidence that recent improvement have come about as Lennon and Oviedo have come back into the team, players in their prime proven in the prem. Not enough of them in the squad at all. (Don't anyone post a comedy list with Kevin Nolan on you know what point I'm making).
Doesn't matter if Arteta left two years before Martinez. Moyes hadn't replaced him either, it became Martinez's job to do this when he took over especially with the decline of Pienaar and Osman. The 'hard to find' excuse is exactly that, an excuse. Moyes found both Arteta and Pienaar for 2 mill each, these players are out there and we have the money to get them. Instead we've spent close to 25 mill on defensive midfielders and 50 mill on strikers, it's all about priorities.
If you honestly think Martinez is getting the most from this team then the only logical conclusions are: Moyes was a managerial genius massively overachieving (unlikely), or Martinez has taken the quality of the squad backwards (probably not). How else do you explain a top 7 side spending 18 months in the bottom half? The answer of course is that the manager is not translating squad quality into results.
