Roberto Martinez Discussion - Including Live Poll (Poll Reset 1st May)

[Blue Cheese]

finishing 11th playing some of the worst football in a long time and having a talented squad 12th even with playing great football at times are enough for me to wave goodbye though.

 

[Mickey]

Bobby at the minute:

 

[MikeH72]

On the captaincy subject, a captain is the manager's voice on the pitch. You think maybe Jagielka is a church mouse on the pitch because he has a spineless church mouse of a manager above him? That's why Martinez loves him as captain, because he has no personality or authority and won't answer back. Look at Roy Keane and Fergie, they absolutely hated each other and argued all the time, who'd have thought they were among the most successful managers and captains ever eh

 

[meagher94]

Who was the captain and leader during Moyes reign and in Bobby's first season? You completely over estimate the importance of a captain. All they do is toss the coin.

I agree. Leaders will naturally show themselves on the pitch whether they're the captain or not. Having a little yellow armband on won't give you superpowers.

I don't care who wears the armband, give it to Barkley, he has Everton in his blood. I want to see multiple leaders all over the pitch.

 

[mkrudden]

To me it's more simple than personnel incomings and outgoings on the coaching staff. On the road only Spurs have conceded less goals than us. This is a tale of two seasons we have here at Everton.

Goodison is not a fortress and that's because we lack a cool head organiser and leader to shore up this defence when under pressure.

We have the easiest problem in the world to solve: make home form as good as away form.

I disagree here.
We have leaders.
We need more winners though.
That's what the cash this summer should be used for.

 

[willo30]

To me it's more simple than personnel incomings and outgoings on the coaching staff. On the road only Spurs have conceded less goals than us. This is a tale of two seasons we have here at Everton.

Goodison is not a fortress and that's because we lack a cool head organiser and leader to shore up this defence when under pressure.

We have the easiest problem in the world to solve: make home form as good as away form.

Think it's more than just the players on the pitch. We play different style away from home and at home teams do to us what we do to them away.

Put it this way if he was to go out next week and hire a solid ex pro as defensive coach I would go to the top of this page and change my vote to in. This is how fine it is for me over in or out. The defending is just overshadowing his attacking for me at the moment. If he was to get someone else in it would show me he recognizes a problem and he working to fix it. Not doing anything and still having to endure performances like last week is not an improvement in my eyes. You can point out that we've been better recently but the last result shows that our problems are still there.

 

[Mikey_Fitzgerald]

13 goals away from home this season says otherwise. Only Spurs on 12 have conceded less away.

Our problem is that we have no leaders in the team who can galvanise these players to play solidly in front of sceptical home supporters. Those who travel away to watch Everton will know the chalk and cheese defending performances well enough. I know you do go away so I dont need to tell you.

I thoroughly disagree mate

I think you're using an incredibly narrow sample size there and it's skewed the figures

I think our defending has been a problem for nearly 18 months now

We hardly ever press, give the opposition far too much space and gift silly goals from crosses and set pieces

That isn't down to lack of leaders or the supporters, it's down to ingrained and chronic tactical flaws

I'm not dumping all the blame on Martinez here, but I do think he needs to do something about this and a new defensive coach with a fresh perspective on things would be just the ticket

 

[BlueToff]

The most important stat for me is the difference between home and away defending and goals conceded. We've conceded exactly half as many goals away from home as we have at Goodison. Now that is down to two things:

1/ Yes, away from home the likelihood is you sert up slighlty more conservatively and give teams more respect.

...but also..

2/ The tension and nervousness the defence feel at home must be getting to their game...we all saw Stones' reaction against Spurs, and that has to be an indicator of the difficulty these players have coping with their own fans pressure.

As said: leadership required. Never in a million years will you get it from a church mouse like Jagielka, far and away our least effective and influential captain for generations.

I agree on all of that mate.

I just think that RM needs to show (like he had done away from home and in certain games at Goodison (Spurs and City spring to mind) that he can organise the defence as a unit.

He did it for the first 75 minutes and Jagielka played well for that time on Saturday.

But as soon as he took off Lennon and we lost our shape, and then conceded, the reaction all-round (from player and manager) was really poor IMO - even taking into account we were down to 10 men.

Under Moyes his main thing was defending as a team. Under RM I think he encourages a more 'improvised' approach rather than a rigid system. I think it works for some players but our defence, all in all, is better when under a more rigid formula - especially at defending crosses.

 

[MikeH72]

I thoroughly disagree mate

I think you're using an incredibly narrow sample size there and it's skewed the figures

I think our defending has been a problem for nearly 18 months now

We hardly ever press, give the opposition far too much space and gift silly goals from crosses and set pieces

That isn't down to lack of leaders or the supporters, it's down to ingrained and chronic tactical flaws

I'm not dumping all the blame on Martinez here, but I do think he needs to do something about this and a new defensive coach with a fresh perspective on things would be just the ticket

We don't press because the players just don't look fit, especially getting into the last 20 minutes of a game. They're just ambling around, it's easy for the opposition to get in behind us. The walking pace passing out from the back, looking at the defenders when they receive a short pass they look like they've just run a marathon. Watching the rs last night, everything they do is 100mph, the opposition never have a second on the ball. I do wonder if our coaching staff even work on fitness, or if they just have the players playing neat little triangles in 5 a side games where tackling is banned for 3 hours

 

[bluewally]

Who was the captain and leader during Moyes reign and in Bobby's first season? You completely over estimate the importance of a captain. All they do is toss the coin.

You see Bobby gets all the credit for his first season but shares none of the responsibility for the next 2 so we need to have someone to blame so lets blame Jagielka. Or anyone really except Bobby.

You see, despite the fact he had mostly the same players when he reached 5th place with the famous record points total they are now deemed to be too young (despite being older) or not good enough.

in fact the only real first team additions are Mori and Lennon.

But it's definitely nothing to do with Bobby, but the first season is completely Bobbys doing.

 

[Mickey]

We don't press because the players just don't look fit, especially getting into the last 20 minutes of a game. They're just ambling around, it's easy for the opposition to get in behind us. The walking pace passing out from the back, looking at the defenders when they receive a short pass they look like they've just run a marathon. Watching the rs last night, everything they do is 100mph, the opposition never have a second on the ball. I do wonder if our coaching staff even work on fitness, or if they just have the players playing neat little triangles in 5 a side games where tackling is banned for 3 hours

I wonder who's going to be first out with the "Tell all" book when Bobby gets hooked. My money is on Osman. A lot of pieces will fall into place I'm sure.

 

[BlueToff]

This is exactly it for me, the whole defensive set up is wrong, and there appears to be no defensive drilling to ensure everybody knows what their job is and where they're supposed to be.

Martinez appears to favour the South American style defender who is comfortable being left one on one, rather than traditional British style defenders who are all about organisation and defending as a unit. This is why it makes me laugh when people say we need someone like Shawcross in defence. While he's a decent enough centre half in his own right, he'd be an absolute calamity in this system, with teams just isolating him and rinsing him time and again.

As an aside, is Lawrence really the defensive coach? As far as I was aware he's just a coach who happened to be a defender in his playing career, I've never seen anything saying he was specifically tasked with the defensive work with the first team?

I think (as far as the coaches go) it's obviously a joint effort.

I agree though it just needs to be more of a collective realisation from RM and his coaches that this system just does not work consistently in the PL as teams have found a way around it.

To say we aren't poor at defending crosses, for example, is utter nonsense. We're terrible at it the majority of the time as it all looks to be done off the cuff rather than drilled into them.

It's a large problem that - IMO - doesn't require much change to fix other than adapting his style slightly. He has done so already in terms of that we don't now look to control possession for possession's sake and going forward we look as good as we ever have done.

He's shown signs of doing that with the defence, but ultimately seems to not be able to change it fully. I am willing to give him until season's end like - the main thing is improving the home results.

The defending away seems to be done more as a unit and we're better off for it - combined with the fact we are more comfortable sitting back - for whatever reason.

 

[royalblue66]

I wonder who's going to be first out with the "Tell all" book when Bobby gets hooked. My money is on Osman. A lot of pieces will fall into place I'm sure.

Been saying awhile, who will be the first to break ranks ?

 

[bluewally]

Been saying awhile, who will be the first to break ranks ?

Ossie 2014-16
A view from the Bench

 

[TheHumbleEgg]

You see Bobby gets all the credit for his first season but shares none of the responsibility for the next 2 so we need to have someone to blame so lets blame Jagielka. Or anyone really except Bobby.

You see, despite the fact he had mostly the same players when he reached 5th place with the famous record points total they are now deemed to be too young (despite being older) or not good enough.

in fact the only real first team additions are Mori and Lennon.

But it's definitely nothing to do with Bobby, but the first season is completely Bobbys doing.