Martinez Hits Back At Defence Criticism

Roberto Martinez has refuted West Ham United’s claims that Everton have a weakness defending crosses.

West Ham striker, Michail Antonio, who scored in West Ham’s 3-2 comeback at Goodison on Saturday, revealed Slaven Bilic instructed his side to exploit what they perceived as a vulnerability in the Blues’ backline.

Martinez said: “It’s easy to talk, especially when you’ve won a game.

“When we were 11 against 11, we were the better team and scored the goal to go ahead. Then we had to change things tactically and with 10 men you wouldn’t have seen a difference – it was like we had the extra man.

“Then we scored another goal from open play and controlled the game completely and never got done on crosses in that period.

“It’s more that we felt we had something to lose. Winning the penalty was a massive high but then missing it was an emotional low, and all of a sudden we gave West Ham momentum that unfortunately they got a big reward from.”