Martinez new Belgium head coach

[Papa Shango]

The ginger no mark finished 4th at a time when Chelsea were dominating with their new found wealth, Arsenal still had the invincibles squad, United had the world's greatest manager ever and the #trickyredmen™ were champions of Europe.

Martinez finished 5th on 72 points in a season so bad for the top teams that one of the greatest frauds in the history of football, Brendan Rodgers, came within a pube's width of winning the title.

Should have been sacked after the 7-0 drubbing to Arsenal. Everton do not lose 7-0.

 

[MikeH72]

Should have been sacked after the 7-0 drubbing to Arsenal. Everton do not lose 7-0.

We obviously weren't going to sack him after finishing 4th with Gary Naysmith and Kevin Kilbane were we?

 

[Black Belt Jones]

I don't think you're grading scale works to be honest mate

Koeman came in when we were a bottom half side. If he wins the title next season, but then leaves us when we're 17th, he'll have dropped further and sharper then Martinez or Walker ever did

However, he will have also won the League, so what means more? How high you can get the club or how low you take it?

Under your grading scale you could argue that this would make Koeman worse than Martinez, because he took a club from 1st to 17th, but we all know that rationally Koeman's legacy would be that he was our best manager of the PL Era at that stage because he would have brought home title number 10

You have to look at everything that happened in a managers reign. Martinez getting fifth whilst having us play some good togger puts him ahead of Walker, who had us in the bottom half playing dross from start to finish

Fair is fair at the end of the day. I consider Martinez's managerial run to be a failure, but a failure isn't as bad as a catastrophe, and that's the only way you could describe Walker's run. Literally the only "positive" memory of his reign was beating Wimbledon 3-2, he had nothing else to his name. Martinez had the Oviedo goal at Old Traffic, the Arsenal game at home, Wolfsburg away etc

It's not even close, Martinez > Walker

Sod it, Walker is in the running to be our worst manager ever, he was utter mince with no redeeming qualities

You're struggling to see things in context, Mikey_F. Why the need for abstruse hypotheticals?

We were on a relegation trajectory under HK II in 93 / 94, made a very wrong appointment in Walker that just maintained that level of performance, and rectified our mistake by axing him in less than a season [he got about 30 league games IIRC]. Now it was catastrophic that a club of our stature had to go life and death with Wimbledon FC to preserve our status in the top flight, but overall it was just a period of stasis. [Poor language removed] going in, [Poor language removed] going out.

Roberto inherited a solid, quality squad that had gotten stale, gave the players a boost by cancelling training for a year, then proceeded to reap what he had sown over two more years on a protracted drive down to the premiership cellar. He presided over a massive inferiorisation of our club to the point where the players refused to play for him out of professional and ethical responsibility [something I've personally never seen before at Everton no matter how bad things were in the 90s].

I agree it's pointless to say who is better, Martinez or Walker, as it's like asking what's better, cat [Poor language removed] or dog [Poor language removed]? But as a point of comparison, a reference point, it is obvious that Walker is the most closely related manager we've had to Martinez, so it is appropriate to judge them together.

 

[MikeH72]

You're struggling to see things in context, Mikey_F. Why the need for abstruse hypotheticals?

We were on a relegation trajectory under HK II in 93 / 94, made a very wrong appointment in Walker that just maintained that level of performance, and rectified our mistake by axing him in less than a season [he got about 30 league games IIRC]. Now it was catastrophic that a club of our stature had to go life and death with Wimbledon FC to preserve our status in the top flight, but overall it was just a period of stasis. [Poor language removed] going in, [Poor language removed] going out.

Roberto inherited a solid, quality squad that had gotten stale, gave the players a boost by cancelling training for a year, then proceeded to reap what he had sown over two more years on a protracted drive down to the premiership cellar. He presided over a massive inferiorisation of our club to the point where the players refused to play for him out of professional and ethical responsibility [something I've personally never seen before at Everton no matter how bad things were in the 90s].

I agree it's pointless to say who is better, Martinez or Walker, as it's like asking what's better, cat [Poor language removed] or dog [Poor language removed]? But as a point of comparison it is obvious that Walker is the most closely related manager we've had to Martinez, so it is appropriate to judge them together.

Did a proper lol at that

 

[Papa Shango]

We obviously weren't going to sack him after finishing 4th with Gary Naysmith and Kevin Kilbane were we?

Obviously not but I was fuming about it.

Still am evidently.

It was all for nowt anyway, we didn't even qualify for the Champions League in the end.

Classic Moyes.

 

[Mikey_Fitzgerald]

You're struggling to see things in context, Mikey_F. Why the need for abstruse hypotheticals?

We were on a relegation trajectory under HK II in 93 / 94, made a very wrong appointment in Walker that just maintained that level of performance, and rectified our mistake by axing him in less than a season [he got about 30 league games IIRC]. Now it was catastrophic that a club of our stature had to go life and death with Wimbledon FC to preserve our status in the top flight, but overall it was just a period of stasis. [Poor language removed] going in, [Poor language removed] going out.

Roberto inherited a solid, quality squad that had gotten stale, gave the players a boost by cancelling training for a year, then proceeded to reap what he had sown over two more years on a protracted drive down to the premiership cellar. He presided over a massive inferiorisation of our club to the point where the players refused to play for him out of professional and ethical responsibility [something I've personally never seen before at Everton no matter how bad things were in the 90s].

I agree it's pointless to say who is better, Martinez or Walker, as it's like asking what's better, cat [Poor language removed] or dog [Poor language removed]? But as a point of comparison it is obvious that Walker is the most closely related manager we've had to Martinez, so it is appropriate to judge them together.

I'm not saying it's inappropriate to compare them to one another, I'm simply stating that Walker was worse, because he was

As bad as things got for Martinez he was never as bad as Walker

Again, Walker is our worst manager of the PL Era in my eyes

 

[Papa Shango]

I'm not saying it's inappropriate to compare them to one another, I'm simply stating that Walker was worse, because he was

As bad as things got for Martinez he was never as bad as Walker

Again, Walker is our worst manager of the PL Era in my eyes

By a country mile.

It may have got as bad to be fair but we of course will never know that. Regardless of what came before them, what came after, what situation they were in, money to spend etc etc you can not compare a manager who got 72 points in his one good season to one who was so far out of his depth it was grim.

 

[hktoffee]

Lads: "Walker or Martinez" debate: that's the psychology you use on divvies.

Not going to work I'm afraid. Insulted by it frankly.

Martinez top of the pile in PL season's of merit. End of story. Better effort than HK, Big Joe or the Ginger no mark.


...go and ask the Dutch lad on 58 points how hard it is to get a season like that together. He for one will never achieve it. Too conservative by half.

Lol keep banging on the fluke season. 47 points and 44 points. You said nothing.

Moyes got 4th and your 72 pts got 5th. Enough say.

 

[Papa Shango]

Lol keep banging on the fluke season. 47 points and 44 points. You said nothing.

Moyes got 4th and your 72 pts got 5th. Enough say.

Neither qualified for the Champions league.

So really none of it mattered.

This "fluke" season stuff is nonsense by the way. You don't fluke a whole season.

 

[hktoffee]

Neither qualified for the Champions league.

So really none of it mattered.

It mattered, for me. I don't get the praising of one fluke season and ignore 11th and 13th. Personally Moyes had done a lot more than Martinez for this club.

 

[artetas_biggest_fan]

Martinez took over a solid top 6 team that was pushing for top 4, continued that for a season and then dragged us slowly but surely down to 13th playing some of the worst football I've ever seen. It's a tough one to call in terms of which manager actually dragged us down further from their starting points.

Moyes did that throughout his entire reign at the club. His teams are horrific to watch and are a reflection of him, dull. Although Martinez is clueless defensively (the image of him standing on the touchline while Wigan were getting gubbed by eight at Spurs (same at Chelsea) stand out) his teams do at least try and play in an attacking manner. Ball retention is also something his teams aren't bad at. Aside from his inability to organise a defence the biggest weakness in Martinez is his use of the English language. If something is good, Martinez would say outstanding. He inflated everything and thus his words became meaningless. He was lampooned routinely for the way he exaggerated everything.

If I had to pick a manager I'd never want to have in charge again it would be Moyes. Football is about entertainment as well as winning. Moyes provided neither. He's the anti-Cruyff.

 

[Papa Shango]

It mattered, for me. I don't get the praising of one fluke season and ignore 11th and 13th. Personally Moyes had done a lot more than Martinez for this club.

Stop with the fluke season stuff! Its ridiculous. You can not fluke a season.

Moyes was there for 3 times longer to be fair. Realistically neither of them did anything out of the ordinary. Praising 72 points or finishing 6th or coming 4th and then not actually qualifying for the competition just shows how far we have fallen. Its all fairly meh.

 

[Papa Shango]

Moyes did that throughout his entire reign at the club. His teams are horrific to watch and are a reflection of him, dull. Although Martinez is clueless defensively (the image of him standing on the touchline while Wigan were getting gubbed by eight at Spurs (same at Chelsea) stand out) his teams do at least try and play in an attacking manner. Ball retention is also something his teams aren't bad at. Aside from his inability to organise a defence the biggest weakness in Martinez is his use of the English language. If something is good, Martinez would say outstanding. He inflated everything and thus his words became meaningless. He was lampooned routinely for the way he exaggerated everything.

If I had to pick a manager I'd never want to have in charge again it would be Moyes. Football is about entertainment as well as winning. Moyes provided neither. He's the anti-Cruyff.

I think that's a bit harsh, we played some really nice stuff under Moyes at times. The style of play was never an issue for me, the issue was that we had players capable of playing good stuff yet every time a big game came up we bottled it and reverted back to being "solid" and going into ultra defensive mode. It was tedious as he never learnt from it.

 

[Gwladysstreetlad]

As much as it pains me to defend Martinez on anything he wasn't worse then Walker who must be one of the worst football managers I've ever seen in any level. Walker is in a league of his own for stupidity and incompetence. He wasn't fit to manage a five a side team.

 

[hktoffee]

Stop with the fluke season stuff! Its ridiculous. You can not fluke a season.

Moyes was there for 3 times longer to be fair. Realistically neither of them did anything out of the ordinary. Praising 72 points or finishing 6th or coming 4th and then not actually qualifying for the competition just shows how far we have fallen. Its all fairly meh.

Moyes deserved his time here. He made a mistake for his career by leaving Everton. In contrast, Martinez was well deserved for his sacking.