Over the course of the last couple of years, there have been a number of defences of Martinez put forward, both on here and by other fans I know. Many of them have also been peddled by the man himself, in his regular attempts at deflecting the blame and hoodwinking the fanbase. I think it's time we put a few of those myths to bed.
1. THE ENTERTAINERS
For much of this season, we've been told that our attacking play is dazzling, we can score goals at will and just need to get the balance right for everything to click into place. Even on saturday, Roberto was telling us how we couldn't find our 'usual' fluency and threat. I just don't see this i'm afraid.
We're the 7th highest scorers in the league. Not bad, but not exactly wonderful either. We have failed to score in 10 of our 34 league games this season. That's pretty bad. To put it into perspective, Liverpool are the team with the next highest goals tally, and they've only had 6 shut outs - 2 of which were in August. Essentially, we're flat track bullies, filling our boots against dross but unable to break down decent sides.
2. A YOUNG SQUAD
This keeps being repeated, particularly by the manager, who appears to have found some old videos of David O'Leary on which he can base his press conferences. According to an article in an online newspaper today, though, we have the 11th oldest squad in the division.
We are still heavily reliant on Jagielka, Barry and Baines, who are all in the twilight of their careers. Worse than that, there's an increasing chance that Osman and Hibbert may be in the squad for Saturday - a full 7 years after many blues thought they'd ended their Everton careers with their showings on the wide pitch of Wembley.
It's also worth noting that our young players just don't seem to be getting any better. Barkley looked like he was ready to bloom earlier in the season, but he's gone rapidly backwards in the last few months. I was convinced that turning down bids for Stones made perfect sense last year, because his value could only rise - looks like I was badly, badly, wrong. And how would you have reacted 2 years ago had someone told you that Deulofeu would today be sitting on the bench for a team in the bottom half of the Premier League? I thought he'd be playing for Barcelona and Spain by now, not getting the odd run out for us and repeating the same old tricks as he was when we first signed him.
3. SIN MIEDO
I don't know where to start with this one. Martinez was supposed to come in and change the whole mentality of the club. No more 'knives to a gunfight', we were now going to front up and take the game to the big boys, fearing nothing and nobody. I went to The Emirates in December 2013 and I actually thought he might be on to something. The performance was excellent and we were far more threatening than Arsenal. Winning at Old Trafford a few days later seemed to cement the idea that things had changed. That's as good as it's ever got though.
If we say that there is now a 'Big 6' - United, City, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea and Spurs - that win at Old Trafford 28 months ago remains our only away win at one of the big boys. We've taken 8 points from a possible 54 in away games against those sides, with an aggregate score of 29-10. We've saved a special kind of awful for our performances at Anfield, where we've taken 2 hidings as bad as anything in living memory, and have only scored once, with a last minute hit and hope from a centre half.
Cup games have so far gone the same way, with capitulations against Arsenal, Kiev, and City every time we've looked like achieving something. In some of these big games we've been more negative than I ever thought imaginable, with the disgusting shouldering of arms last night being the worst of the lot. 3 shots with none on target, in reply to 41 and 15 from our lovable neighbours. That's not a Liverpool side with Gerrard in his pomp, Alonso, Torres or Suarez; we've been torn a new one by James Milner and Divock Origi.
I've never seen so much fear in an Everton team. They're like a rabbit in headlights every time they step on to the pitch, and our esteemed leader seems to think that they're even scared of playing at their own ground. He's had 3 years to change their mentality, and he's made it more fragile than ever. Quite an achievement.
I know it's TL, I know you DR, but I wanted to get it off my chest. If any of you have just skipped to the end then I'll summarise it for you - It wasn't working in the past, it isn't working at the moment, and it won't work in the future. Martinez out.
