After letting another lead slip and witnessing what was, to put it kindly, an insipid second half performance, Evertonians were again left rightly frustrated. Stepping back and distancing myself from the usual go-to fume phrases, I've been trying to look objectively at why it just isn't quite working this year. Certain mistake patterns are emerging, and you could probably make a word document of the 5 biggest gripes with our performances of late, and just copy and paste them to describe whatever our latest match happens to be. So what's changed since last year?
Victims of our own success
Ourselves, and to a lesser extent Spurs and Liverpool, are in Premier League no mans land at the minute. We're better than the likes of Newcastle, Southampton (just watch them slide) and Swansea, but we're not quite as good as the big spending teams above us.
This has led to teams parking the bus, or more accurately placing two banks of four against us (see any home game this year and most aways too) and saying come on, play through us then lads. Last year, teams were more inclined to have a go at us, thus leaving more space for the likes of Lukaku, Mirallas and Barkley to exploit. Playing through two banks of four, regardless of who is included in those two banks of four, is a very difficult task, and one which only the top players can really do on a regular basis. Do people honestly think Southampton/West Ham would be sat where there are in the league now if teams had been parking the bus against them? Not a chance. If they keep it up till next year, you'll see the exact same thing happen to them. You need a Silva, or a Hazard, or a Mata to be able to beat the teams who set out to frustrate you, not the raw talents of a youngster like Barkley or the tired, much too slow legs of an Osman.
Tempo, passing, and players
If Martinez persists with the same formation, the same tempo, and the same possession based game, which history (and Wigan fans in particular) tells us he will, you simply need a better standard of midfielder. The game we currently play hinges almost totally on there being a door unlocker in the team - there isn't one. The tempo of passing needs to be much quicker, and the standard of player needs to be higher (more creative, intelligent, whatever) for the system to work. Languid, predictable passing gets you nowhere. A possession based game only works if the other team is frustrated by not having possession, who have we played this season who have looked frustrated by us having the ball? Nobody. Last year teams were afraid of what Deulofeu would do to them, we've lost some of the fear factor we had, and teams are starting to look very confident setting up against us.
You need a quick tempo and a sharpness of mind to make it work - it creates indecision in the opposition defenders minds, to the point where they're making silly mistakes. Taking the Barcelona of a few seasons back as the example, the defender knows that if he doesn't close down Messi/Xavi/Iniesta then
he'll either pick out a quality pass, or simply skip round him. There's no danger of any of Everton's midfielders doing this on a regular basis, and the opposition knows it.
The less technically gifted of our blue contingent keep making mistake after mistake this year, and of course when you have 70% possession in a game which attackers and midfielders constantly closing you down, they're absolutely bound to make mistakes. These players need to see the ball less, not more. They need to quickly turn play over to the players who are technically gifted. How often have you seen us tap it about 20 times only for it end up at Distin's feet? Punt.
Roberto
He's persisting with his beliefs on how football matches should be won to the point of arrogance, he's set his teams out the same way his whole managerial career, but what he seems to be missing is that you need a certain calibre of player to play it. He needs to be ruthless in the transfer market. He needs to tell the likes of Howard, Distin, Hibbert, Osman, McGeady, Kone and Alcaraz that their days are numbered, they simply aren't good enough to play the style of footy he insists on playing. It's worrying then that he's showing absolutely no signs of getting rid of any of them, quite the opposite infact, with many of them getting new deals.
Whatsmore, there's no plan B. Sometimes you need to get ugly to get points in the premier league, everybody knows that. Which leads to another flaw of Martinez, his ignorance of set plays and their importance. A point earned by a last minute header from a corner in a game that is a total scrap is every bit as precious as a point earned from having 70% possession.
Now Roberto does do an awful lot right, and his positivity is infectious. But occasionally you do need to call a spade a spade, and last nights second half performance was definitely a big, ugly spade that needed calling one.
Overall
It's obvious we don't have the money to go out and buy a couple of classy attackers like Silva etc, but there are cheaper options out there which are definitely within our range. Spurs bought Eriksen for £11m. Saints bought Tadic for roughly the same amount, and Sigurdsson for even less than that. There will be plenty more options out there in a similar range, and if Roberto insits on playing the way we're playing, he simply has to find one or two of them. If not, teams will continue to frustrate us and absolutely nothing will change - unless Roberto does.
