Was 11th that bad with our squad last season?

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malcson said:
Given we all want and accept that we need quite a few additions/changes to the squad to be capable of challenging for top 4, was this such a bad finish with the squad available.

In other words was Marinez' ultimate downfall at least in part down to his embarrassing post match quest to tell the mdeia about the positives when all was clearly not going well. Under pinned by his tactic of maybe over hyping the squad and labelling individual players as "phenomenal", "diamonds", "world class".

I don't think he would have tunred it around and the players where clearly lacking stamina,but could he have lasted a little longer with a bit more of a truthful assessment of the team and their performances?

Thank goodness he didn't and hastened is own end, just thought that given the money we need to invest was our squad even that good last season?
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Good thread mate, a very fair question.
I was a staunch Martinez fan and, whilst I don't think the squad was anywhere near as good as it was publicised, the fact remains that much of that bravado was caused by Martinez in the media. He wanted the pressure, speaking of it regularly in his media comments. With that comes scrutiny so it could not have been a surprise to him when he got grief for not winning enough with everton's 'best squad in years'.

We should have finished in the top 8 and would have if we had known how to defend a cross. Again, a Martinez failing. There is only so many times you can see a team of people you manage failing to deal with a common theme before it should be addressed. He didnt despite us conceding and dropping leads time and time again.

I do think he was dealt a bad blow with the complete meltdown of his defence after season 1. Yes he should maybe have foreseen that age would catch up on Distin but he had Stones there as a back up. Instead, Howard fell off a cliff form-wise, Baines and Coleman struggled for form and fitness and Distin became an amateur footballer....all after blowing his entire budget on Lukaku.

Finally though, despite what I regarded as some of the best football WITH the ball we've played in donkeys, Saturday proved that what that team needed was a kick up the arse and some bite. We have barely strengthened really - a snappy CM whose role McCarthy SHOULD be able to play and a second-rate (albeit it he played really well) keeper from Fulham. Why couldnt Martinez have developed a press further away from our box seeing as we had such problems defensively?

All in all, yes - last season was a failure I think.
 
Well at first I was going to just say "yes" and leave it at that. But actually when you consider we got to semi finals in two cup competitions, maybe it wasn't. We probably needed 4 or 5 more players in the squad to compete convincingly in the league and both cups. We seemed to be completely tired after 70 minutes in most games and conceded late goals.

If we had won one of those cups Martinez would still be our manager. I think he gambled on that and ultimately lost.
 

Yes it was poor. The manager did and ought to carry the can for it, but regardless there were some embarrassing performances from the team.
 
Yes.

We overhype our players, but lets be realistic.

Only Chelsea, Norwich, Villa, Sunderland, Newcastle and Bournemouth left goodison empty handed last year. Worse than 33% win rate, at home, is appalling.

Infact, only Newcastle and Villa failed to take points off us at all last season.

Im not saying we should have been world beaters winning the league, but we should have been vastly better.

Swansea, West Brom and Stoke all won at Everton ffs.
 
Let me be clear, I am NOT saying we didn't under perform, that 11th is acceptable for Everton, that Martinez was a decent manager or that he should have been given more time.

Just that if we say top 8 was expected, lets say 7th or 8th. Then 11th is behind where we should have been but not a full blown disaster. Had Martinez conducted press interviews with a semblance of realism may we have been stuck with him for another 12 months? i.e if he had found excuses in the squad for performances and emphasised a need to strenghten, maybe even said that we are working hard in training on our defensive frailties and ability to deal with set pieces!

I am merely suggesting that his intransigence and unwillingness to accept that his style of football wasn't working was more to blame for his removal than an 11th place finish and thankfully hastened his downfall.
 

11th was a disgrace for the squad he had there. Deulofeu, Lukaku, Barkley, Stones, Baines, Coleman, Jagielka, McCarthy, Mirallas, Besic, Mori, Lennon, how can you win so few games with these players? Vital gaps in the squad went unseen to but ultimately the season was a total disaster.
He may of stayed a week more talking less of the brown stuff, but if he had done that, we may well of been a lot higher up the league anyway.
 
To end up losing so many points from winning positions then yeah, we did underperform. I did enjoy some of the football played during RM's 3 years but to keep failing due to repeating the same errors over and over mean he, and the players , let everyone down finishing 11th.
 
Yes I think 11th was bad.

All down to Martinez "philosophy".

It's all good being a master tactician and football scientist in your own head, but if the players don't buy it, you will finish 11th.

That's what happened in my opinion.
 

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