Roberto Martinez discussion

[BernieWright13]

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/spor...vertons-roberto-martinez-must-beware-11008682

That is very damning from the Echo, about as harsh as they have dared to go

Just seen this. Holy sh1te, comparing him to Mike Walker. The Echo are well and truly onto him.
Excellent news

 

[roydo]

I presume he got a fat bonus then? That's a bit different to salary, it's not like his going rate would have been greater than Mourinho's. I like the idea of bonuses, we should offer our next manager a fat bonus for actually getting us into the Champions League.

He did. Mega, and iirc, when it was agreed the Palace owner was like "I will be unlikely to pay it anyrate", but when Pulis kept them up he tried all sorts to not pay it.

It might be all bobbins, but @Alan Whittle might have some idea.

 

[EFCINLONDON]

Can't see him lasting if we lose the next 2.

 

[Moomin]

Seems the media has turned on him with these recent stories. He needs a result on the weekend or it will just get worse.

 

[beautifulthing]

Being critical of our home support is not patronising at all.

If you criticise something of which you are not a part and you make it clear it isn't how you would behave as a comparison, as far as I'm concerned you're attempting to be patronising.

In the end, of course, it's fruitless, because supporters more outspoken than me, will ask the telling question - how would you really know what's going on? You're not there.

Everton is part of the flesh and soul of many of the people of Merseyside. For you, it's an internet hobby. A little humility would help your cause.

 

[BernieWright13]

Happy clapping our way into the championship or letting our manager, players, and board know that the current offering is not good enough for Everton. Which one of these is a better definition of 'support'?

Exactly. If we don't point out that Martinez is serving up tripe who will?

Actually, the Echo by the looks of it now

 

[roydo]

Seems the media has turned on him with these recent stories. He needs a result on the weekend or it will just get worse.

Lets see. Needs a performance at least.

 

[Kiwi]

All isn’t OK. Things are far from OK.

Leicester are the extreme in a season that has seen the gap between the better sides, and the lesser sides narrow- if not disappear. Unfortunately for us, we’ve been a victim of this catch up period. Like the lame buffalo in a David Attenborough documentary- on the face of it, sides have picked us out as the weakest of the pack. They’ve come onto our patch, roughed us up, and had their way as they please. Even the foxes that sit atop the premier league table have been in and mauled- what should be- the bigger, more powerful animal. If I’m going to continue to labour the tedious animal references: as others have embraced the challenge of the more competitive league, we’ve somehow managed to develop a soft underbelly along the way- we’ve become the rhino chasing the stampeding pack in Jumanji. Grunting, tired, trudging- we’re plodding along behind the leading pack. We aren’t even close. Chaos ensues in front: Leicester(!) are top, United are poor, West Ham are getting nose bleeds, it might well be the worst Liverpool side of my lifetime, and the likes of Stoke, Southampton, and West Brom join them as some of the eleven sides that currently sit above us. Compounding frustrations is the fact that when we did have our house in order under Roberto Martinez two years ago, we had 54 points after 29 games. Which would be good enough for third this season. But we’re not, and besides- the landscape has changed since then, as I’ve mentioned. But it does add to the frustration, on some level. The year we finished fourth under David Moyes, it felt like every time we lost- Liverpool managed to. Every time we gave them a hope, they fluffed their lines. Fast forward to this year, and as teams at the top have declined- here’s us with our best squad in thirty years- and we’re badly underperforming. It should’ve been us closing the gap. We should’ve been the side lurking in the long grass after an awful season last year- ready to pounce on the champions league places vacated by the mangy, flea riddled carcasses of Chelsea and United. But we haven’t.

There are more questions than there are answers. On the simplest of terms- the ‘why?’ and ‘how?’ type questions all point back to our coaching staff, and the man the buck eventually does stop with- Roberto Martinez. I spent the better part of six hundred quid on my season ticket over the summer, and have only seen us win four league games since April. Let there be no confusion over this: that’s unacceptable. To add to the confusion of the weirdest season I’ve ever known: our home and away form are opposites. It’s been horrible walking away from Goodison, dissecting the defeat amongst family, picking a path between the throngs of disgruntled faces. From Bullens Road, along the back of the Gwladys, past the William Hill opposite the island, and passing The Spellow on my own walk back to the car. You might go the complete opposite, but the conversations you’re having will be the same. The sound spilling from those next to you on any bottle-neck along your walk will be the same as those I hear my way: “His in game management…”, “I don’t understand that(those) sub(s)”, “we can’t defend”, “we’re soft”, “we can’t deal with crosses” and such like. There’s a truth to each of those. There’s a painful truth, because we’ve all seen it this season. We’ve all lived it. But there has been more than will ever meet the eye when years from now you end up googling ‘Everton 2015/16 results’ as you end up in some obscure, late night boozed up debate. You know the kind. Results haven’t been good enough. And it’s a results business. If results don’t pick up, and end up staying up, it will cost Roberto Martinez his job. With new investment, there pressure to compete at the top soars like a Rodrigo free kick; getting up the league will only come from conceding less goals, and winning more games.

I should say, on several levels, it’s pretty counterintuitive to play Devil’s advocate here. After all, I wrote this in December, criticising our defending and the manager. Into March, and it’s alarming how much of it still rings true. I know we’ve conceded more than any other side at home in Europe:



I know we’re soft in the air: any of you who are sad enough to read my match reports will know I’ve been saying it since the morning light of what should’ve been a great season for us. I know we’ve been too soft. None of this is being disputed. What I am saying is: in my mind, this season has more grey areas than the ‘Just For Men’ aisle in ASDA.

See, ultimately, all roads do lead back to the manager one way or another: Funes was awful on Saturday. His worst game in Everton blue…

How’s he managed to get himself that far apart for the equaliser? He was touch tight before the cross came in, and then he’s done that. That’s inexcusable. Martinez deserves better from his Argentinian international. But hey, he signed him. And as I said in my bit on Funes: he can switch off from crosses. His woeful defending on Saturday was unbelievably costly. But again, the manager signed him so… And about that goal (and that article)- I’ve written has a horrible habit of getting too deep (I’ve written it on several occasions now), and here his is for that same goal:

Two yards deeper than everyone else, playing the goal scorer onside just as the cross is about to come in. He needs to wake up here. He’s not a kid. He needs to be aware, and step up with his line. Funes takes comfort in being deep- wherever we are on the pitch, he almost always wants to be deeper- it’s all in the Funes ramble. I’ve said it should easily be coached out of him. But it hasn’t yet, and how it cost us on Saturday. If there isn’t someone stood on the side of the training pitches at Finch Farm with a megaphone bellowing “step up, Funes!” every time he gets himself deeper than his teammates- then that’s bad coaching. Because make no mistake, as I’ve noticed it:

So should they. This is the grey area I’m talking about: the coaching isn’t up to scratch… Or Mori isn’t learning quick enough. Or both. There has to be accountability for moments like that, costing us from both: individual players, and our coaching staff. How about the third, gut-wrenching goal on Saturday?

What’s Seamus thinking here? How can he think ‘I’m going to push up to the half way line to pressure the ball’ with seconds of a hard fought game remaining? That’s on coaching. It should be second nature for him to get narrow with his teammates on the back line, and be in a decent position to deal with the second ball. This isn’t complicated. It’s suicidal. Infuriating to think they aren’t drilled to deal with exactly this in the most conventional way. We aren’t re-inventing the wheel. Do the basics right. The less glamorous side of the game. But then here’s that grey area again:

Why aren’t Besic and Barry goal side of Payet? Why, with both of them watching the ball about to be lumped forward (in the first picture), and thirty yards of green space ahead of them, have both of them gone to sleep? Nobody in front of them is scoring as the ball is played- how do they not sense the danger is behind them before they turn? This is the worst kind of stupidity. Unfathomably bad. How can neither of them have known the ball was going over their head, and they’d be out of position should West Ham have won the header? Which of course, we know they did. The manager can’t hold their hands for them, and guide them to get into an area of the pitch where they might be able to influence the outcome. These are two internationals. However good or bad the coaching may or may not be at Finch farm (I’m obviously not privy to it), it’s not the managers responsibility to have one of his defenders calling his central midfielders all the names under the sun as an opposition midfielder is afforded all the space Payet gets: “Eh lads… Don’t fancy marking twenty seven, do you? Cheers”. The green stuff doesn’t [Poor language removed] score.

And we were fifteen minutes away from keeping a clean sheet and easily the best win of the season. See, the result will never show that Kevin Mirallas got himself sent off in the first half, and we played masterfully. Grey. The result will never show the managers decision to play Aaron Lennon up alongside Romelu Lukaku and give West Ham fits. Grey. Bilic was volleyed up and down the touch line by Martinez on Saturday. That is, until a sloppy clearance from a corner allowed a ball to be returned, Funes to not bother challenging for a header, and then the two goals above. We were a decent penalty away from all this being irrelevant. And a one-on-one. So grey. But it didn’t happen. The result shows a big fat L, so that’s that. I haven’t watched it in years, but when I was a kid, I quite liked the film ‘Mission Impossible’. I never understood the ending, but that didn’t stop me liking the other eighty-odd minutes of it, or whatever it was. Payet poking in that winner after the two that preceded it, was the footballing equivalent of Jon Voight getting shot on that bridge- or not, whatever: I still don’t know. It was a Slaven Bilic pulling off his mask to reveal himself as someone else away from being the L4 ending to Mission Impossible. I still don’t know what happened. It’s a blur.

The good will has long gone with Martinez: we’re fed up, and I get that. I feel that, too. “It’s happened too many times now” is fair. But there’s a world of difference between the way we surrendered our lead at Bournemouth, to the way we didn’t take all three points off Chelsea. This is another problem with this season: it’s been soul destroying. The way points have been lost have been like death by a thousand cuts. The toe-to-toe nature of defeats against the likes of Stoke and West Ham have left us all broken-hearted. There’s a lot to be said for our need to defend better, especially when in the lead. But the manager has set the team up to do the business, and they haven’t delivered on numerous occasions, too. Losing to a single shot on goal against West Brom while only hitting the target six times form thirty four attempts (a league record) was a low point. Unless the manager is expected to leave the brown shoes in the dressing room, and don a pair of Diadora’s… Or whatever it is middle aged managers wear, I don’t know what more he can do for his side? Ben Foster threw his cap on efforts that day. Is the suggestion really that the manager didn’t share in the complete and utter frustration shared by everyone else that day, as he stood watching his side conspire to take nothing from the most frustrating of afternoons? It was the same story away to Norwich and Swansea, too. Sixty six shots we hit in those three games. We’ve two points and one goal to show from them. On the season, we hit about a third of our shots on target, and about a third of those shots go in. Easy points should’ve been there to have in these games. You just knew what was coming when we missed all those golden chances against Norwich, and so it proved. A manager sets his side up to play, and it’s up to his side to take their chances. Grey. So when we’ve played as well as we have, and created as many chances as we have, but not won games- it throws a different kind of light on the games when we’ve not been so good, and failed to win. Talk of mental strength- a know how to win games, to kill them off- how to win when not quite at the races are all fair, legitimate concerns. Only three sides have loss less games than us in the league- we aren’t an easy side to beat. It’s about developing a different skill: being ruthless.

I’ve never seen at team dominate so many as we have this season, but have so little to show for it. Grey. It isn’t just Martinez. It isn’t just the players. It’s been both.

It isn’t all rosy in the garden. It isn’t even close to it. I’m not trying to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes. As I’ve written before, we’ve underperformed under Roberto Martinez, and it’s he who takes the blame ultimately. His decision to stick with Tim Howard for as long as he did was a continual lack of good judgement- one that I doubt I’ll ever shake, and one that has been a big reason for him being on the hottest of hot seats. It’s of his own doing. But what if we’d been without Howard this season, and the curtain had been drawn on his Everton career in a dignified way by Martinez?



Things would look different. We’ve allowed fewer shots on target per game in each of Martinez’s first three years, but the goals have shipped in. Hardly solely down to Howard. Not by a long stretch. But a factor. A big one. And that’s a criticism of the manager: not of Howard, who did as best he could as his powers declined. But scan that table, and have a think about some of its implications.

To criticize the manager’s failings with this squad is fair. Nobody would suggest we’ve as many points as this squad should’ve gotten. To criticise the manager’s performance with this squad must be given the context that his fingerprints are all over this squad- that we herald as the best of a generation- were put together by him. Particularly our fab four (sorry)- Lukaku signed on to be coached by Martinez. Twice. If he was such a bad coach, would he have done that? Deulofeu signed on to be coached by Martinez. Twice. If he was such a bad coach, would he have done that? There’s been something of a debate in my mind for a long while now: wondering whether John Stones would be a better player at this point if he’d still been playing his football under David Moyes. And I don’t mean just the last half dozen appearances of John Stones when he’s struggled mightily- I mean Stones throughout Martinez’s three years- the same Stones we all desperately wanted to stay over the summer. “I’d take the money for Stones” says the fella in the ale house. I wouldn’t. There’s a reason we all worried about Barcelona rumours- and those have come in his time with Martinez. Half a dozen poor games aren’t an accurate representation of Stones, who will come again. The truth is, I don’t know whether Stones would’ve been a better player under Moyes at this stage- I wouldn’t particularly argue against it either way. I will say, there’s no way in my mind the diamond of the four: Ross Barkley would not be the player he is today if he was managed by Moyes. Not a chance. Moyes wouldn’t have stuck by Barkley through the lapses in concentration, the languid style, and all the times he gave the ball away. Martinez did. Remember Roy Hodgson’s reaction when he gave the ball away for England? Never from Martinez. And he shared everyone’s frustrations throughout the growing pains. He just never showed it. And now look how Barkley continues to develop. A joy to watch. He has the manager’s trust, and he’s so much better for having had it. In a parallel universe somewhere, whilst still managed by Moyes: we’ve spent the last two years watching YouTube clips of Brentford games wondering how he got on over the weekend while he’s out on loan. So often the managers supposed kindness has been taken for a weakness. That might well be true, but it will prove to be spectacularly wrong where Ross Barkley is concerned.

Substitutions are of increasing concern under the manager. Most notably of late his use of his bench against West Brom, Aston Villa and (of course) West Ham. All very fair. He has to get better with his subs. Too often now the manager has rolled the dice and failed. They say the house always wins, but that hasn’t been the case when Everton are at home. There is plenty the manager has to improve at. Plenty. Substitutions are pretty close to the top of that list. If he doesn’t- soon, it won’t be our problem for much longer, such is the seriousness of the situation at Goodison.

Our defending at the most crucial of moments have been poor, but we’ve almost always been punished for it. There are no games that have left us thinking ‘how did we manage to win that?’ Frustration will never have any greater context in football than this season. One step forward, two steps back. The manager has been let down at times by players who should know better, but they too have been let down with coaching that has evidently failed to address the weakest areas of our game.

I’ve honestly got nothing to gain from this- something that will likely prove hugely unpopular- and I get that, but I think it’s fair that it’s said. For every West Ham result from now on, the pressure will crank, and the arguments for/against keeping the manager will continue to become ever more lopsided. The manager has to get more from his team and win more games. But honestly: when I step back and survey: I see a lot of black and white, but I see even more grey.

Fantastic article this. Very eloquent and echos my thoughts in a far better way than I could have put it.

 

[BernieWright13]

Sorry if already posted as I slept overnight. From another place...

"Couple of pieces in the last 24 hours claiming senior players are unhappy with Martinez...

I'll just leave these pieces of mob journalism here...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/football...-faith-in-robert-martinez-ahead-of-crucial/?x

"Telegraph Sport, however, understands that a number of Everton players would like adopt a more savvy approach to trying to protect leads and keep the opposition out. They want to play for a winning team."


http://soccer.nbcsports.com/2016/03...alyzing-the-title-race-with-nine-games-to-go/

"A source recently told ProSoccerTalk that senior players among the Everton dressing room have lost faith in Martinez’s tactics and deem the Spaniard as naive, while another source claims he is not the flavor of the month with the top young talents at the club either."

What with these and now the Echo, it looks to me like its happening

 

[Groucho]

Hang on lads. Let's not jump all over this.

Dave will be on soon to explain what he actually meant.

Never known dave so quiet don't know why

Two more threadbans. That's a few today eh @The Esk?

We've asked more than enough times to not get personal with members. It's not hard. Do we have to go further than mere threadbans if these polite requests are ingnored?

Please (deja vu?) debate in a grown up way.

 

[Kiwi]

Entirely bang on about Ross too. For all of Martinez's faults, Ross would not be where he is now if it wasn't for Martinez's trust and patience with him.

 

[BlueStevie35]

If you criticise something of which you are not a part and you make it clear it isn't how you would behave as a comparison, as far as I'm concerned you're attempting to be patronising.

In the end, of course, it's fruitless, because supporters more outspoken than me, will ask the telling question - how would you really know what's going on? You're not there.

Everton is part of the flesh and soul of many of the people of Merseyside. For you, it's an internet hobby. A little humility would help your cause.

Pot kettle black there, you and others accuse @ilikecheese of patronisation yet that's exactly how you are treating him, so because he's not a local he can't be classed a real fan? Bang out of line

 

[orly]

Those Lukaku and Del 'only signed for Martinez' shouts absolutely reek.

Where else were the bids for Rom? The Wolfsburg bid never materialised. No one else made a serious cash offer. He's been worth every penny but there were howls of derision elsewhere when we paid £28m. Join us or do a season on the bench were his options. Fair play to him for showing a will to actually play football, but Martinez the reason? Give over.

Del? Again, where else was he going to go? He had a disastrous spell at Sevilla. No one else wanted to take the risk on him. The way the Spanish Kopites structured the deal, they see it almost as a no risk deal- becomes a world beater and he goes back for not much of an outlay.

Bilic was volleyed up and down the touch line by Martinez on Saturday.

Except when it mattered. Fraudo made his tactical faux pas and a mind as limited as that meff in charge of West Ham took advantage.

And we were fifteen minutes away from keeping a clean sheet and easily the best win of the season.

Utter drivel. First leg vs City. 0-3 at Southampton. 0-3 at Stoke. Our home record [before Saturday, another one to chalk up to the fraud] vs West Ham was outstanding. Easily the best win of the season?

Forget the jarg comparisons to Leicester - freak season. Compare us with Spurs. The Horrors from the Pit. At time of writing we are below West Brom and they are absolute bum expulsion.

If that article is that last stand of the desperate, it's an argument that no longer holds water.

 

[macdog]

Martinez is also being paid a hell of a lot more than Pulis. Pulis doesn't make the list of the top 20 best paid managers in world football, whereas Martinez does. He's the 14th highest paid manager in the world, and the 6th highest paid manager in Britain. We aren't getting what we are paying for at all.

Hell's bells. Which other club would have been so patient? He is not a complete failure, as others have pointed out much good has come in his tenure. But in the end, hard evidence remains - we are not doing well and seem unlikely to change and improve. It's not a matter of if, but when, he has to go.

 

[Groucho]

If you criticise something of which you are not a part and you make it clear it isn't how you would behave as a comparison, as far as I'm concerned you're attempting to be patronising.

In the end, of course, it's fruitless, because supporters more outspoken than me, will ask the telling question - how would you really know what's going on? You're not there.

Everton is part of the flesh and soul of many of the people of Merseyside. For you, it's an internet hobby. A little humility would help your cause.

Although I'm from L4, I don't think we can tell others they're 'lesser' fans because they live elsewhere. That's really quite patronising there mate.

What if I said the same about people who come from outside the club's and my postcode? I don't like the business of telling blues "you're not a real blue". We're better than that fella.