Firstly, thanks to the mods for finally attempting to do something about the state of Martinez threads on here, about a year too late in my opinion and more could still be done to improve things but better late than never, it actually feels worth posting my views on Martinez now and that i might get some sensible replies.
So, he's a weird one really. He's done a lot of very good things since he's been in charge but he keeps negating them by doing bad things which see's us sat in 12th place on March 10th.
When he was first announced as manager i was 50/50 on him, wasn't particularly for him but wasn't particulary against him, he was probably one of the better options around and deserved a shot.
And boy did he start off well, it did seem like the perfect storm. Everyone knew we'd pretty much reached a ceiling under Moyes, i remember many people saying we had the talent but we just didn't have the attitude to really get the most out of the team. We were usually solid, played some good stuff and some bad stuff, best of the rest but always seemed to lack that mental attitude to win, we needed someone who could build on the solid base left by moyes, add a bit more "flair", positivity and will to win.
In his first season that was Martinez. Best example for me being away at Old Trafford. We know how Moyes approached those games, not easy to win there but he never really really tried, seemed happy to get a draw. Not Martinez. Sure, it was a different animal he faced (ironically because of Moyes) but come the 85th minute and your right back is in the area to cross it to your left back to score the winner was what we needed.
Overall we were unlucky to only finish 5th but Arsenal just had more than us but we gave it our best shot. Unfortunatly a lot of people went overboard about Martinez (im pretty sure Barcelona didn't look twice at him), as good a first season as it was it was still only a slight improvemnt on previous seasons and there was a lot of work still to do.
I'll admit one of my biggest worries about him when he signed was his signings. They were very hit and miss at Wigan and in our financial postion he needed to pretty much as good as Moyes in that department which was a tall order. But, thus far he has proved me wrong. A few duds of course (but which manager doesn't sign a few of them) but you can't say he hasn't improved the squad really.
Then we have the second season. The Europa didn't help our league position, there's been plenty of evidence over the years to suggest it's difficult to balance Europe and domestic challenges, especially with a smallish squad. And just because there are exceptions (including us) doesn't mean it wasn't an issue. I don't think it was the major issue that some people claimed it was, our worst run of form domestically came when we weren't playing in Europe. And i had a count up sometime last december (which coincided with the start of our poor run last year) and we'd played 2 games more the previous season in Europe than we had this season, one of which was a dead rubber against Krasnodar.
We did ok in Europe for his first shot at it. I don't think we did as well as some people say, the Wolfsburg games i believe we had a lot of dodgy decisions go our was, plus some poor Wolfsburg finishing meant the aggregate score didn't tell the whole story. The less said about Kiev away the better. Overall a good first European campaign for him.
The football we were playing which started with Spurs away was just awful, absolutely awful and it went way deeper than simply being in Europe. I said at the time i was worried it was a manager imposing his "philosophy" on the team regardless of results, or more importantly when it was obvious we didn't have the players to play that way. Seemed like the players knew that as well. But to his credit he proved me wrong and he eventually change things up a but (whether through his own choice or player pressure we'll never know) and we moved away from any thoughts of relegation and finished 11th. As well as being the only manager in Everton history to go out of both domestic cups first time of asking).
It was a poor season pretty much, but he was now on 1 good season and one poor season where we'd seen the best and the worst of him.
Now this season. Pretty poor league wise, decent cup wise. Whilst we're in a similar position league wise we seem to have differing reasons and issues for that than last season. The awful slow posession based stuff has gone in exchange for a better quicker more direct attacking football. Which is doing great, we're scoring a lot of goals, and its good to watch when we do. But we keep arsing it up at the other end.
Why? God knows really, probably a combination of a few factors that have all been discussed on here. In various degrees you're probably looking at a combination of past it keeper, lack of leadership, poor shape, poor pressing when out of posession, refusal to tighten things up and defend a lead, individual mistakes, lack of confidence to hold a lead, dodgy refs and on edge fans. Thus far all thats changed really has been the keep situation (and probably the dropping of Stones, who as good as he is probably isn't the right guy right now in a team with defensive frailties).
It's kind of weird because going from memory we in the main either seem to keep the match tight, not score many but don't concede many, or we score loads but concede loads too. We aren't losing 3-4 nil, we losing 3-2 or 4-3, most of the time when we've had leads.
It's not all Martinez's fault, of course not. But he's the boss, he takes the credit when we win thus takes the blame when we lose. What could he do different? I think he has to forgo his values and learn to shut up shop. Think back to the aformentioned victory at Old Trafford and 2 full backs in the opposition area after 85 mins. His beliefs won us that match. But its his beliefs that are costing us at the moment by throwing away leads after helping us get leads.
You don't need to score 3 or 4 to win a game of football, you only need to score 1. I said before i thought his signings might not be up to scratch, he proved me wrong. I said i hoped he wouldn't persist with the slow arse posession game, he didnt and proved me wrong.
I'll say now that i think he is so positive in everything he does, and so obsessed with thinking that football has to be played a certain way and that if he doesn't continuously try to score goals instead trying not to concede them his peers will think less of him. I think he doesn't place any value on defending set pieces when he could spend more time trying to score goals, i think he doesn't want to waste time at the end of a game and would rather score another goal. I think after the first couple of times we lost leads by not shutting up shop it affected the players and the fans leading the the whole combination of reasons we have now.
I hope he proves me wrong again.
As for the rest of this season and his position. Reaching the FA cup semi or even final isn't enough. If what ive put in the previous paragraph is right, simply winning a couple more knock out ties isn't gonna change the fundamental issues. If however he wins the FA cup and becomes the first manager to win a trophy for Everton in 21 years i'd be more inclined to give him time. Not much, maybe the first 10-15 or so games of next season to see if he could solve the defensive problems.
But if he doesn't win the FA cup and i was in charge of Everton i'd be looking to make the change as soon as i thought a suitable replacement was available. What the actual people in charge think , i have no idea and pretty much no one else does.
We can only wait and see and hope that he can change things for the better, for himself, for the fans, and for Everton.
