Darth Toffeeman
Player Valuation: £40m
I think a lot of my caution on this is that we have a lot of players who served under Moyes still playing, and they probably still carry a lot of the defeatist stink he imbued them with for these away fixtures against the elite clubs.
Martnez continually stresses in his press conferences that he's having to reinforce the message to our players that they can do certain things and be the players they want to be. They are, without wishing to be too dramatic, scarred by their time under Moyes and his approach to big games.
If we can get them over that psychological hurdle in one or both of the next two games then we really are in business for the rest of the season...even more so if Billy Liar loosens the purse strings and allows Martinez to purchase a player without funding it from a sale.
I was thinking this at first but when you think about it:
Lukaku, McCarthy, Barry, Deulofeu have no history with Moyes, Oviedo hardly got a look in, Barkley will have a point to prove having been jettisoned to lower leagues and Mirallas seems to like to do his own thing and raises his game against this kind of opposition taking no prisoners (Suarez and Wiltshire spring to mind).
So that bar Pienaar is our entire front unit. just the Centre halves and keeper really and I hope they can put in a top drawer performance.