HOW does Roberto Martinez get away with it? If Everton lose at Carlisle on Sunday he is in big, big trouble – and he should be.
I don’t know why he doesn’t get more stick. He’s got one of the best teams in the league and they are massively under-performing.
The amount of goals they are letting in is unacceptable and you can’t blame it all on John Stones. He’s told to the play the way he does by the manager.
Martinez has got the England left back in Leighton Baines, the Irish right back in Seamus Coleman, a £50m centre back if you believe the hype about Stones, and one of the most experienced defenders around in Phil Jagielka.
He plays with two holding midfielders in front of them, including Gareth Barry who covers more yards than almost anyone in the division and they let in goals every week.
How is that possible?
Martinez is supposed to be one of the brightest managers around but you can’t keep on doing the same things and getting the same results.
Okay, the goal that turned their League Cup semi-final against
Manchester City this week shouldn’t have counted. You can’t legislate for decisions like that.
But let’s not paper over the cracks, they are letting in too many goals. City scored three and hit the post twice.
It’s not good enough. I know plenty of
Everton fans have turned against him. But why isn’t he getting more stick? It’s unacceptable.
You hear him talk after games and you start thinking: “Oh maybe he’s right, it’s not that bad, they let five goals in but they were a bit unlucky…”
Hold on. No. It’s like that scene in ‘Men In Black’ when Will Smith presses the button and everyone forgets everything. That’s what it like when he starts talking.
People say they’re good to watch. Are they? I know what I would want to watch if I was an Everton fan – a winning team.
I understand about Stones. England don’t have many centre halves who are so comfortable on the ball and he’s very quick as well.
But watch how he tackles. A lot of his tackles are last-ditch slide tackles because he’s always out of position and he’s quick enough to make up for it.
His positional play is atrocious. He doesn’t see things quickly enough. If you ask anyone for their top 10 defenders of recent times, Tony Adams and Paul McGrath would be in there.
And both of them knew when to smash it into Row Z and get back into position. Until this lad sorts his game out players will love playing against him because he always gives you a chance.
You can’t be doing Cruyff turns in your own six-yard box. I don’t care what Rio Ferdinand says. If he does that at the Euros, England will be coming home.
But it’s down to the manager. The manager needs to tell him. Rio had a go at Everton fans for getting on the kid’s back the other day.
He reckons West Ham fans never did that to him when he played. But I played with Rio many times. He never took liberties like that.
He says you have to let Stones make mistakes. But when Rio played it cost about £20 to watch football. Now it costs a fortune. Fans don’t pay all their wages to watch a kid make mistakes.
Stones would be a better defender now if he’d gone to
Chelsea. He wouldn’t have been allowed to do things like that. He’d have learned from the best. Under Martinez he’s just learning bad habits.
So Everton don’t just have to beat Carlisle in my opinion. They have to win it. This is a good team. Surely they should be winning things. They’re 12th in the league.
That’s unacceptable. West Ham are well above them. How does that work?
Martinez has got away with it so far but he won’t if they go out to Carlisle.
