Improvements?

Have we made any improvements since Moyes?

  • Yes

    Votes: 48 47.5%

  • No

    Votes: 39 38.6%

  • Cheese on toast

    Votes: 14 13.9%
  • Total voters
    101
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Martinez was left with a squad whose players were 30+ with a couple of very promising young players.

I imagine Martinez is looking to the future and sees this as the bones to build on:


...............................???

Coleman....Stones....???.....Garbutt

.............McCarthy.......Besic...

???....................Barkley..........???

............................Lukaku


It's clear he's improving the starting eleven step by step but needs 4 more players+Garbutt to sign which is half a team in addition to building a squad as the bench is also limited.

Alot depends on this summers transfer activity as he will need to remove the deadwood whilst again hoping he can rely on Jagielka,Naismith,Osman and Howard amongst others so he can use whatever funds he is given to bring in quality rather thsn stopgaps such as Alcaraz/McGeady/Kone etc.

He needs 20mil and one more season from the older players.
 
Its hard to see huge improvement, because in reality without massive money we have a ceiling, and last season and the odd time under moyes....you could say we were at or very close to that ceiling.
 
Groucho said:
The thing is, I can see what Martinez is trying to do, but the question is, do our players have the confidence to pull it off? Do we need better players to make it work?

The individual errors that have cost us, and that's what it's mainly been, happen very rarely to confident players. Some of our players are good enough (others aren't, let's be honest) for this to work, but they lack the confidence in their ability. That's been the key difference from this season to last, don't ask me why. Teams with the same players don't simply become garbage overnight. The lack of urgency we seem to have had sporadically? Well....

Essentially, he wants us to play total football, and I think the players are on board, but lack the self-belief. We're we in a wave of confidence from 'new manager syndrome' last year, and has Moyes' 'play it safe' ethos come back in their minds when results have taken a dip this year, destroying confidence? That would suggest Martinez is trying to improve but Moyes' longevity here and mindset is holding us back. Perhaps not.

Who am I jivin' with this Cosmik Debris?
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I dont think there's any excuse for pros not to be able to do what Martinez is asking of them. I've seen/heard it stated loads of times that 'we dont have the quality of players to play that system'. It's nonsense. It's having the ability to find a team mate with a pass that doesn't put them under too much pressure and finding space to receive yourself and to be able to carry the ball if need be into yawning space. It's nothing special being asked of them. Look at Swansea: for a decade or more they've had bog standard players playing comfortably like that on the ball. Look at S'ton this past season or so and the way they can all move as a unit together. You dont need bundles of cash, you just need a system that players are 100% sure about and feel like it's second nature to them.

Our problem (although I dont think it's as big a problem as some suggest, because we had this system working in the first season) is that:

a) we have players still left in the squad who have the residue of playing a different way in their mindset under earlier managers (key people like Baines, Jagielka, Mirallas, even the GK) and they dont ever seem comfortable in this new system. despite last season.

b ) (and I said this when Martinez arrived) we have a support base weaned on direct football during the last 15 years who need to be re-educated about what football should look like when its played at its best, but who in the meantime have no patience whatsoever with a team trying to find its identity as a passing, ground centred unit.

Martinez was and remains the best chance we have of dragging ourselves into the 21st century of football.
 
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davek said:
I dont think there's any excuse for pros not to be able to do what Martinez is asking of them. I've seen/heard it stated loads of times that 'we dont have the quality of players to play that system'. It's nonsense. It's having the ability to find a team mate with a pass that doesn't put them under too much pressure and finding space to receive yourself and to be able to carry the ball if need be into yawning space. It's nothing special being asked of them. Look at Swansea: for a decade or more they've had bog standard players playing comfortably like that on the ball. Look at S'ton this past season or so and the way they can all move as a unit together. You dont need bundles of cash, you just need a system that players are 100% sure about and feel like it's second nature to them.

Our problem (although I dont think it's as big a problem as some suggest, because we had this system working in the first season) is that:

a) we have players still left in the squad who have the residue of paying a different way in their mindset under earlier managers (key people like Baines, Jagielka, Mirallas, even the GK) and they dont ever seem comfortable in this new system. despite last season.

b ) (and I said this when Martinez arrived) we have a support base weaned on direct football during the last 15 years who need to be re-educated about what football should look like when its played at its best, but who in the meantime have no patience whatsoever with a team trying to find its identity as a passing, ground centred unit.

Martinez was and remains the best chance we have of dragging ourselves into the 21st century of football.
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That suggests it's a mostly mental problem then. I'd agree mostly.
 

Groucho said:
That suggests it's a mostly mental problem then. I'd agree mostly.
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It is mate. It has to be. Look at the quality we have and how they embraced the new challenge last season. We were transformed as an organisation and EVERYONE was happy (plotters apart, of course). But failure to get results has seen howling from the terraces and these players have not had the mental strength to deal with it. They reverted to a mixture of long ball and possession based game to get back on track...even the manager was spooked into it.

That's not right though. He and those players should be resilient (and good/confident) enough to carry out a plan of action. If they aren't and Martinez cant achieve that then he should leave. If that happens though we need to get a man in that can impose that plan forcefully on players and fans. We cant be going backward to some game plan that has us with CBs knocking the ball downfield in kick and hope football and a big bustling number 9...but that's the impression I get from Martinez's detractors about the sort of approach they'd like to adopt again.
 
Whilst we look better as a team a lot of the time when we have the ball the ease of which teams seem to be able to march downfield with the ball against us is a worry. And the defending of set pieces needs a lot more work.
 
Moyes was capable of getting to the point where fourth place was in our hands, and then promptly dropping his arse, so even last season wasn't really groundbreaking.

Martinez is similarly conservative, only instead of plan B being to go long when chasing a game, his is to just get beat.

Everton are no better in terms of creating clear chances through incisive passing, and if anything the overall level of creativity in the side has diminished. Anyone could get a group of professional footballers to make safe passes in areas where they won't face pressure.

Still, he's going nowhere soon, so I just hope he has the balls to make big changes in the dressing room. The only player who looks as though he puts any effort into improving his game is McCarthy.
 
Carlito said:
Moyes was capable of getting to the point where fourth place was in our hands, and then promptly dropping his arse, so even last season wasn't really groundbreaking.

Martinez is similarly conservative, only instead of plan B being to go long when chasing a game, his is to just get beat.

Everton are no better in terms of creating clear chances through incisive passing, and if anything the overall level of creativity in the side has diminished. Anyone could get a group of professional footballers to make safe passes in areas where they won't face pressure.

Still, he's going nowhere soon, so I just hope he has the balls to make big changes in the dressing room. The only player who looks as though he puts any effort into improving his game is McCarthy.
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He's two seasons into the job.

When did we become so impatient?
 
davek said:
He's two seasons into the job.

When did we become so impatient?
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I'm not saying he should be sacked. I just don't see signs of anything worth getting excited about.

Whether people like it or not, the club won't achieve anything of note under the current owners, regardless of who coaches the team.
 

I think they are pretty much on equal footing as managers. Like all managers they all have positives and negatives.

Its funny in Moyes last season I kept thinking that this squad would do extremely well playing Bob's system. It was a finesse side with little of the physicality that his previous sides had. We might have had a bit better shot at the C-league under Bob that year. I also think that last year's side would have probably had about 8-10 less points playing for Moyes. However something happened this year and we morphed back into a side that is more suited for Moyes style of play. I think this year's side would have been no less than 8th under Moyes.

It hasn't been a good year but its been a learning process for the manager and a bunch of players. For many of them it was their 1st WC year (even for vets like Jags/Baines) and their 1st year in Europe. Other young players (Coleman, Barkley) are discovering that when you have success smart people break down what you do well and take it away.

So we'll have an offseason, maybe a bit more health and probably a decreased fixture list. I can't see us being worse next year and if a couple good young players are brought in we can be back up there again.
 
David Moyes had a formula, which brought stability to the club and his success was in making us a competitive top eight team.
I don't believe that his style of football would ever make us a top four team and in truth David Moyes probably stayed with Everton for one if not two seasons too long. We should not forget that he openly courted the Spurs job twelve months before he eventually left.

Roberto Martinez is still a work in progress, as is his team. He likes his teams to have a creative midfielder that pulls the strings for the passing game he favours. At the moment the player best suited to that role is Darron Gibson and he is injured too often, next in line are Osman and Pienaar and they are both in the Autumn of their careers and have injury issues as well.
I think Martinez could make us a better and more successful club than we were under Moyes , but the proof of that will probably be seen more clearly next season. Of the team that started yesterday seven I think were brought to the club by David Moyes.

RM ,as with David Moyes, does not have unlimited funds that allow him to change his team over the course of three or four transfer windows. It will take longer and he needs to be given time to put his team together.This window will be very interesting in that we will see the areas that he feels need strengthening.
 
blueblue said:
David Moyes had a formula, which brought stability to the club and his success was in making us a competitive top eight team.
I don't believe that his style of football would ever make us a top four team and in truth David Moyes probably stayed with Everton for one if not two seasons too long. We should not forget that he openly courted the Spurs job twelve months before he eventually left.

Roberto Martinez is still a work in progress, as is his team. He likes his teams to have a creative midfielder that pulls the strings for the passing game he favours. At the moment the player best suited to that role is Darron Gibson and he is injured too often, next in line are Osman and Pienaar and they are both in the Autumn of their careers and have injury issues as well.
I think Martinez could make us a better and more successful club than we were under Moyes , but the proof of that will probably be seen more clearly next season. Of the team that started yesterday seven I think were brought to the club by David Moyes.

RM ,as with David Moyes, does not have unlimited funds that allow him to change his team over the course of three or four transfer windows. It will take longer and he needs to be given time to put his team together.This window will be very interesting in that we will see the areas that he feels need strengthening.
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People say this, but I've little evidence of him wanting a creative player in the center
 

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