Jesus!
1 good season and 2 seasons of absolute eye piss when he dismantled Moyes defence.
You must have been pretty high on something for 2 seasons to not notice.
Yes, it was 1 good season and 2 relatively poor ones, but each had their moments as well. For instance, the 2nd season seemed terrible after what had been served up in the 1st, but comparing instead to Koemans 2nd puts a whole new spin on it. Moyes 2nd season we finished with 38 points, our lowest ever points tally in the PL.
I've argued the "Moyes Defence" claim time and again, but what the hell. When Moyes left for Utd, we were essentially at the end of another cycle and he knew it as much as anyone. He walked out for a bigger job yes, but he also walked out on what would've been another painstaking squad rebuild with little or no money. By the time Martinez left 3 later, Howard, Distin, Hibbert, Osman, Pienaar, had all but retired, and Jagielka and Baines both needed replacing. That's not to mention Gibson was nearly finished. Also Cahill and Neville who each left in Moyes last season. This was the core of Moyes team, minus Fellaini, Jalavic, Anichebe and Naismith, all sold for transfer funds, plus Mirallas, Gueye and a young untested John Stones.
The talk that he "dismantled" Moyes side like it didn't need doing is disingenuous at best.
The problem was, he had very little money to truly buy the quality of players we needed to take the next step, and 2 months after Moshiri took over, he was gone.
If there's any reason for why we shouldn't return.
Mo Besic, Matthew Pennington, Luke Garbutt (who's 28?!) departed - 3 years+ since their last appearance for Everton - due to hefty contracts; the latter claiming £9m off us, over the 5-years Martinez gave him.
Galloway, Leandro Rodriguez the list goes on. Blinded faith in average players was his downfall.
Big fat no for me.
The Besic contract was a head scratcher, I will give you that. Garbutt was a strange case, in that he always appeared to be the natural successor to Baines and had been at the club since he was 16, but he just didn't kick on. He had looked decent in a few appearances though, and if I recall, the contract he signed at the time was amid talk of him leaving at the end of the season, and was heavily linked with Spurs and Liverpool. I'm sure Martinez wouldve got zero stick if he hadn't offered a new contract and/or he had ended up at either of those teams.
Pennington signed his contract under Koeman and Walsh, and played and scored in the Derby under Koeman. Trying to figure out how this is Martinez fault.
Galloway, I would argue was a decent prospect, and as someone else rightly pointed out, I would say was harshly replaced by Baines who was rushed back and way past his best anyway. The true downfall of Galloway was a disastrous loan to Tony Pulis WBA under Koeman, who essentially disregarded Galloway as he did with virtually every other player Martinez had anything to do with. I don't see Galloway as the nagative that you seem to, and if anything, he was another decent relatively cheap prospect that just didn't kick on thanks largely down to the Koeman. He would've been a drastically better option than Cuco Martina, that's for sure.
Leandro Rodriguez, Shani Tarasaj, etc, they were cheap punts in the hope of trying to unearth a gem when we had little or no money to spend. But you would hope none of that would matter now with Brands and his scouting network in place.
In short, I'm not even saying Martinez is the right choice, and I don't think it's a good idea to go back. I said as much in my original post that the levels of toxicity and the ill will and hatred that already exists there, it would most likely be untenable. I also said that he was stubborn, didn't learn his lessons, and had his flaws, and that that the low points were pretty bad. But that doesn't stop me thinking that some of the positives he did bring, and some of the ideas he had, were along the right lines, and that maybe, in a different time line, and with more patience, things could've worked out better.
Whoever we appoint, we need to make sure that they are backed properly, both in terms of money and in patience. Its gonna take time, probably a few years minimum, and its not going to be a quick fix.
