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

[Groucho]

I think the danger is we replace him with a quick fix. There's obviously better managers out there with similar philosophies about how to run a football club. No guarantee we'll get one.

This is what it all boils down to.

The ultimate question for me is - is he good enough in the medium/long term?

 

[oldblue]

I don't think the players aren't 'playing' for him, but he can't seem to get the best out of them, or motivate them enough to give it all on the pitch. Moyes could but not quite for a whole season but a calendar year which was weird. (Recall , that some of our yearly form would be enough to have us near the top of the table). Ranieri has been extremely lucky but I think the pure perspiration by every member of that squad ensures that. At the match I often look at the midfield and feel they just don't graft enough. Sorry went off on a tangent here. (Nightshifts. .)

Pretty much agree but I just think once you are out there on the pitch it's the players around you and to some extent the atmosphere that will matter. And we need two or three players out there they respect and are even a little scared of. Fine balance as you don't want a moaner who is on your back all the time.
I couldn't even look around the league and say who fits the bill. Someone could emerge from the squad. Lennon has given us a glimpse of it.

 

[RFUS]

The way I see it, if Bobby is here next season then Lukaku won't be. I think Rom respects him don't get me wrong, but he is clearly as frustrated as us. The only way we keep Rom is by going out and getting a manager to match his ambition and ability.

There are plenty of experienced, high calibre European managers who we could now afford, who'd jump at the chance to manage this squad. I think for once our strengthening doesn't need to be done on the pitch, but on the touchline.

 

[deipnosophist]

,ivisiveness is hurting Grand Old Team forum - and Everton.

I wish people would wake up to reality; to accept cold hard current Premier League standing empirical fact as incontrovertible truth, as opposed to some alternate universe (we might win a cup) possibility.

R Martinez is a man under-equipped to take this club we love , anywhere near where we desire to go on a sustainable basis.

I'm tired of the fractiousness.

He just needs to go

To paraphrase Henry II..."will no-one rid me of this vexatious manager"?

 

[DrEFC]

We're the only ones witnessing the rage because it's localised on forums like these. I don't think it represents the wider picture.

Go the match, no one is surprised when we lose. There's palpable discontent. Unfortunately resignation that it's just gonna be like that. I've enjoyed the cup games at home against City (was in work for Chelsea game) can't really say I've massively enjoyed the other home games. We're all waiting for an upturn in form that's not come.

 

[oldblue]

I don't think the players aren't 'playing' for him, but he can't seem to get the best out of them, or motivate them enough to give it all on the pitch. Moyes could but not quite for a whole season but a calendar year which was weird. (Recall , that some of our yearly form would be enough to have us near the top of the table). Ranieri has been extremely lucky but I think the pure perspiration by every member of that squad ensures that. At the match I often look at the midfield and feel they just don't graft enough. Sorry went off on a tangent here. (Nightshifts. .)

And I'm doing a nightshift next Sunday so I'll pop on here then and make it a debate worth remembering

 

[rascal]

All the tools are in place, unfortunately the only tool we are certain of is the one on the touchline.

 

[The Cowboy]

Martinez has, through astute purchases, greatly increased the value of our squad. He has also shown much more willingness to let youth have a chance and bring players through from the academy. I think his record of buying and "blooding" players is excellent. It's his inability to make the most of a squad that HE in large part has assembled. Get so bored with the inability of Martinez critics to see him as anything other than the great Satan "has destroyed our club." That's such a parody position. He's failed to meet his own targets, yes. But I am not one of those supporter who sees zero merit in what he tried--and yes failed--to achieve in terms of attacking football and squad development. It's not happening but frankly I find all the lines about "fraud" and "imposter" and "get out of my club" silly. The whole unwinding of this, if that's what is happening, is a little more complicated. As anybody who reads this thread after we beat Chelsea and then after we lose to Arsenal understands (not that I'd wish that on anyone!).

Sadly there are no prizes for most valuable squad.

And he has not 'destroyed our club' but he has pretty much destroyed the defensive foundations that Moyes put in place. Honestly, we had a really good defence under Moyes, and all we needed was a bit more creatively and guile in our attack. It's so frustrating to see RM bring the latter in spades and then manage to wreck the defensive aspect.

 

[oldblue]

This is what it all boils down to.

The ultimate question for me is - is he good enough in the medium/long term?

I've switched from feeling he isn't to thinking he probably is. I think converts might be the worst judges but my guts tell me it won't do us any harm to give it next season.
The cup really will matter but more importantly it'll matter to us long after he's gone. I just hope the discontent doesn't effect that. Don't think it will but Goodison was a monster against Chelsea. Never been to the new Wembley but got a feeling we'll do the same there

 

[deipnosophist]

I've switched from feeling he isn't to thinking he probably is. I think converts might be the worst judges but my guts tell me it won't do us any harm to give it next season.
The cup really will matter but more importantly it'll matter to us long after he's gone. I just hope the discontent doesn't effect that. Don't think it will but Goodison was a monster against Chelsea. Never been to the new Wembley but got a feeling we'll do the same there

re R Martinez : ...because, or despite of...?

 

[oldblue]

re R Martinez : ...because, or despite of...?

Neither I reckon. Because it was a cup again and it mattered more than the manager

 

[bluestevon]

For me the 'one off' comments are a bit laughable. After the Lord Mayor's parade and all that. Shows he refuses to see reality.

But also his 'I'm trying to build a football club' comments also shows something else - a small club mentality on his part. We don't need to be built, we are already a big club thanks. He can say he's a winner all he likes, he isn't big enough for us judging by these remarks.

For all his posturing, I'm afraid it seems to me (lately) that he just doesn't see things the way everyone else does. For all his talk of changing to a winning mentality (admirable), he's fostering a losing one.

Everton 0 Man City 2 - 1 shot on target, 46% possession
Everton 0 Man United 3 - 3 shots on target 47% possession
Everton 1 Spurs 1 - 3 shots on target - 41% possession
Everton 0 Arsenal 2 - 2 shots on target -54% possession (mainly as Arsenal went into 3rd gear second half and let us keep the ball)

Those stats show it's far from a one off, despite our much vaunted and praised attack this year we managed 9 shots total in those 4 games and 1 goal total against Spurs, Arsenal, City and United at home

As a manager he is not good enough, the home record proves that, the league positions the last two seasons prove that, the fact we have recorde i believe 1 back to back win in the league over a year proves that, put Lukaku into any of the teams below us with the exception of Villa and that team would right now be above us in the league, we stick with him then this will become a club version of the England team with the golden generation - crap manager wasting the best years of talented players

The reason tactically we are stuck in a rut and he can't change the way we play to be more solid is just a very simple one really, he isn't an innovator - he is an immitator, he has seen someone elses tactics and based his entire management and tactical ideas upon that, the sad fact is though - the actual person he has copied has subsequently modified his tactics as teams learned how to counter it, martinez is trying to play pep season 1 football with worse players in a football world that now knows how to counter that style - but as he doesn't have a tactical brain he is left scratching his head and looking puzzled when it doesn't work

 

[TheHumbleEgg]

In fairness Grouch I'm not sure he meant that.

I think RM's basic ideology will lead to long-term success in terms of producing better 'footballers'.

However, his unwillingness or inability to change certain small aspects (defending set pieces, defending crosses, pressing high) for any sustained run is his downfall.

It's an unwavering belief in a style that - if just a few tweaks were made - would see us challenging on all fronts.

The first season - with a well-drilled defence that he did actually improve - we were outstanding. He showed what he can do when there's a mix.

At times this season, specifically away from home and in the cup runs, he seemed to have cracked it.

But we have absolutely no consistency and while the players must share the blame for that, it also stems from the manager.

No Everton manager, given our recent record, should have to be relying on winning a cup to keep his job going into next season (and even then he would have to show serious improvement in the league first few games of next term), IMO.

But I think that's the position we're in at the moment.

....ergo he's the potential to be a decent 'coach', he's simply not a manager.

 

[DrEFC]

I've switched from feeling he isn't to thinking he probably is. I think converts might be the worst judges but my guts tell me it won't do us any harm to give it next season.
The cup really will matter but more importantly it'll matter to us long after he's gone. I just hope the discontent doesn't effect that. Don't think it will but Goodison was a monster against Chelsea. Never been to the new Wembley but got a feeling we'll do the same there

The season Moyes finished 17th then sold Rooney, we had that resilience and did currently what Leicester are doing (without a Vardy or Mahrez). Moyes admitted he learned from his mistakes, and probably became a little too pragmatic secondary to it, but it got league results. I was hoping this season would be like that, but alas it wasn't. I saw that Lukaku, Barkley, had worked on their game and improved it, and was hopeful, yet it hadn't materialised into a consistent team performance. If Bobby stays, and proves the majority wrong, theyd be happy to admit as much, (edit: I can't actually answer for every fan, I think there's a few who are completely fed up of him regardless) but it's all words and hot air at the moment.
I was at the last Semi btw, we were boss, but the fans didn't cause Sylvans brain fart. We can be the edge needed for a performance, but ultimately professionals should perform regardless, and Baines said that much this weekend. Enjoy it if you go though, lovely stadium

 

[Ashtonian]

I love how some people on here think footballers are brain dead zombies who only follow instruction without questioning it.

No chance of any of them turning round after another loss and thinking 'something isn't right here?' and certainly no chance of anyone without actual loyalty to the club wanting to leave us any time soon, no transfer requests or anything.....

Is it not possible that the players don't back martinez but are also professional enough to turn up and try to have a good game each week? If they don't believe in the manager then they don't necessarily have to down tools over it. Personally i think the players like Rom are doing the come and get me plea to others, just not in the public eye.