“My philosophy and my way of working is not to keep clean sheets,” he said. “My philosophy is to win games.”
Cue the sort of gnashing of teeth from an increasingly disgruntled support who will converge upon The Etihad in their droves tonight, around 9,000 are expected, hoping for their doubts surrounding the Spaniard to be dispelled.
Martinez can look to do things his own way, pushing for more rather than simply protecting a 2-1 advantage makes sense, yet finding a way to justify the self-inflated hype that has built around his Everton team remains the bottom line.
That it is a night for boom - or bust - feels wholly appropriate.
Few sides in recent times have had as many individual plaudits showered upon them as Everton with Martinez choosing to hail John Stones yesterday as having the potential to become one of the “greatest players England has ever seen” when much of the focus
After the first leg, Gareth Barry was singled out as being “one of the best English players ever.” In the build up to the resumption hostilities, Spanish winger Gerard Deulofeu was moved to describe Everton as “an amazing team.”
Yet, increasingly, such assessments seem sugar-coated and are not borne out by results. Martinez has won 30 of his last 80 matches as manager which suggests 18-months of almost continuous bad luck or more fundamental problems are afoot.
“We can’t be told we are underachieving because we have never won anything before with this group of players,” said Martinez.
“It is different when you have a team that for some reason has reached a very good level and for some reason the season after drops its level.
“Our young players know that now they have gone to a different level of scrutiny. It means when they do something good and exceptional they are going to be expected to win the World Cup for their country, and when they do something bad it is catastrophe and the end of the world.
“Mentally it is a very important process for them to learn that new role but we are going to carry on working to be a winning team and fulfil our potential and that’s not going change by us reaching Wembley or not.”
