Everton manager Roberto Martinez faces pivotal week ahead
So this is how it goes for a high profile manager.
Join a club, enjoy a good start and then face a bombardment of questions and series of articles about how you’ve gone about transforming the mood. Feel the admiration about how your training ground idiosyncrasies make the players skip to work every morning. You’re so much better than the guy you replaced, with his dourness and pragmatic football. In contrast, you’re the visionary who studied the managerial greats, like some classical philosopher bringing enlightenment in a darkened age. Everyone feels revitalised. It is rather like industrial strength air freshener has been sprayed liberally across every department, and at the end of the first season of hope there is despair when teams like Arsenal or even Barcelona are linked with a move for you. So much so
you commit to a new five-year deal
“In many commentators’ eyes he is the best young manager in Europe. We agree,” says your chairman.
“He took on an unfamiliar challenge for most managers - to take something really good and make it even better. He has succeeded.
“In his debut season he broke our Premier League record points haul, got us back into Europe and developed some of the most exciting young footballers in the game. He conducts himself off the pitch in the same way. He undertakes his business with great style, confidence, positivity and class.”
Six months into the second season, the promise of the debut campaign is a fading memory.
After a poor start you face a bombardment of questions and a series of articles about why the initial transformation has not been sustained. Feel the cynicism about how all those training ground idiosyncrasies make the players dread going work every morning. You’re so less trusted than the guy you replaced, players and fans craving a return to the pragmatic football that once made your team so tough to be beat. A ‘fawning media’* (*© every critical fan ever) presented you as a visionary who studied the managerial greats, but the home form is worse than the dark ages of the early 1990s. Everyone is need of revitalisation.
By the final few games of the third season,
most supporters have had enough. The environment is in need of decontamination as dissent fills the stands.
This is a brief history of Roberto Martínez's Everton career. Season one outstanding, season two a mess, and season three desperately in need of a finale to justify all that’s been endured over the previous 24 months. You know that Kevin Spacey version of
House of Cards? – it’s exactly like that, without the absolute certainty of a season four.
Martínez has five weeks to issue a timely reminder of the promise of three years ago but it has to be in deeds rather than words. The Merseyside derby on Wednesday cannot be disregarded, but whatever the outcome at Anfield
it is the FA Cup that represents the protective shield. Beating Liverpool and losing to Manchester United is pointless. In the Premier League too much damage has been done.
We can talk and write at length about how and why Martínez lost the love of supporters who were singing about the return of Goodison’s ‘School of Science’ not so long ago, but that is an exercise in stating the obvious.
Results, results, and results.
Everything stems from the inability to mould a side capable of finishing in the top four into winners. When it goes well, the analysis of your style, relentless positivity and refusal to change is presented as part of your charm. When you lose it is the problem.
Martínez's backers will say he built a side that can end Everton’s 21- year wait for a trophy and, at the very least, brought the anticipation of Champions League qualification even if it has not materialised.
Those who have had enough have too much evidence in their dossier that while he may have brought noble ideas and put promising players in place, it needs someone else to get more from them week-to-week.
Everton’s
League Cup semi-final against Manchester City earlier in the season summed up the unfulfilled promise of the Martínez era so far and underlined why the board at Goodison Park will have much to consider in the summer.
Do they review the first leg, when – given the calibre of the opposition – they witnessed one of the most mature, technically brilliant performances by an Everton side in years?
Or do they see what happened in Manchester, when despite some cruel luck the mental fragility of the players in the closing stages was alarming, offering an insight into why so many winning positions have been squandered?
Martínez was correct earlier in the season when he stated the main issue was results rather than performances. In recent weeks, the problem has been results.
This was supposed to be year when Romelu Lukaku, Ross Barkley and John Stones’ craving for Champions League football was to be satisfied on Merseyside. Instead, at least two will be asking to leave. Everton will be paid handsomely – and Martínez will undoubtedly absorb some credit for maximising their value – but how many will trust him to wisely reinvest a summer kitty that could exceed £100 million? The fact Oumar Niasse arrived for £13 million in January and has so far looked so far out of his depth he should be sitting on the substitutes bench with a snorkel and wet suit does not bode well.
It is infuriating such a talented team faces being broken up before it has matured or got close to its potential.
The performances of Spurs, West Ham and Leicester City do not help, Everton’s playing resources are vastly superior to the position they currently occupy. Their current league standing represents underperformance on an unprecedented scale.
Not-so-long ago Everton were the club perceived as maximising their resources, defying wage bills and economic disadvantage to consistently place themselves on the fringe of the top four, ready to pounce should the traditional superpowers slip up. This season was their chance and – in the Premier League – they have botched it.
That is why the FA Cup is pivotal – a final chance for an impressive squad to go from underachievers to winners.
With Farhad Moshiri on board, the plucky underdog tag that has grated for those who recall Everton’s trophy collecting years can be shaken off. If Everton do not save their season, he and the ultra-loyal Bill Kenwright must be gauging opinions and considering if they can begin next August with so many of their supporters disillusioned. The first setback would make it torturous.
Martínez agrees this is a defining week, although he sees it in broader terms than his own future. He cannot ignore the personal consequences given how many have lost faith in him to change the dynamic. For his sake, he needs to emerge from the next five days – and the next five weeks – fielding questions about how he has transformed his football club again.