Roberto Martinez discussion

[Whistlin' Dixie]

Slaven Bilic said; If they scored a penalty, we could have lost three or four nil.

Did he indeed?

If , and Could being the key words

Didn't being the one that matters. Don't need any more pearls of wisdom from Bilic to put paid to that one, do we?

 

[oldblue]

Watched that game and they didn't fold mate, even comparing that to the way we absolutely have collapsed multiple times this year is a bit silly

I watched it and they weren't troubled till looking tired towards the end when they conceded two. Very similar. And I didn't mention other games so how are they relevant?

 

[chicoazul]

None of the qualities you mention have been shown by Niasse so far. It was a crazy substitution. We might still have lost but that sub was awful. Final straw for me.

Niasse has played the game of football before he came to Everton you know?

Any you can continue to stamp your feet if you like.

 

[oldblue]

I think for a lot of people they saw it in real time as the substitution took place. Everyone could see the job Lennon was doing and it was a massive surprise the way he was replaced and the effect it would have on the team. Prior to that decision Martinez had managed the game well, but that decision played a very large part in us ending up with nothing from what would otherwise have been a real positive moment. Add to that it's happened all too often this season and surely you can see why people may view that as a watershed moment.

All fair enough and I'd agree about the substitution. I think there is also clearly a tipping point for most people. Point was really aimed at posts with a very different tone that seem to have made their minds up and would have used anything.
I was personally on the fence with Kev and sending off was tipping point. Would take a lot to win me round now but I'm not going to look for reasons to hate him

 

[chicoazul]

Sorry man, I disagree, he should have put on a defensive player and try to see out the game. It's a simple game, he got the call wrong.

Of course he did mate, we got beat.

 

[Toffeeslam]

All fair enough and I'd agree about the substitution. I think there is also clearly a tipping point for most people. Point was really aimed at posts with a very different tone that seem to have made their minds up and would have used anything.
I was personally on the fence with Kev and sending off was tipping point. Would take a lot to win me round now but I'm not going to look for reasons to hate him

Substitutions aside a lot of people were turning on Martinez before this game as you rightly said the tipping point was that Lennon substitution was suicidal, However if you are to truly gauge Martinez's progress so far you would have to look at the KPI's (key performance indicators) also known as the stats and you will see there that there are problems there the numbers don't lie.

Not going to go into the stats again as there are enough flying around for people to draw their own conclusion but me personally last week was the straw that broke the camels back. Don't get me wrong would love to see him succeed but from what I have seen so far that's not going to change

With regards to Miralles he has all the tools but lacks it in the last 10% so until he sorts that attitude out I think he will always liable to get sent off or have a sulk about sommit so not arsed if he decided to leave

 

[Stanley Parker]

I agree with this, but personally I think the away defending is more down to how we play as the away team. We seem to be better defensively when we don’t have as much of the ball, because it means as a team we have more numbers in the defensive third. I honestly don’t think we are organised any better, we just have more people there, meaning less space for the opposition. Away from home when we gain possession we have power and pace to hit teams on the counter. We are excellent at this due to the players we have.


At home or in games when we enjoy more of the ball, we tend to play ourselves in to trouble. We don’t have as many people in our defensive third, as we move up with the ball we then tend to commit too many players forward and leave ourselves man for man at the back. Teams can then counter on us. It doesn’t mean they will always score directly from the counter but it does mean they can gain possession and quickly progress to more dangerous areas, or they will have time and space due to us not really pressing the ball as a team to pick out a good pass or cross. For a team with 2 players who are defensively minded in the midfield it’s crazy that we can look so open in games.

I said this in Martinez’ first season, for his system to work defensively, you would need players with an exceptional work-rate, mobility, and tactical discipline right throughout the midfield and full back areas. We just don’t have that in those positions, Barry doesn’t have the mobility to cover for the fullbacks when they push so high and McCarthy doesn’t have the tactical discipline. Besic offers a lot of those qualities to be fair, but Barkley is all but redundant when we don’t have the ball.

Lennon has all of those qualities to be fair and that’s why he appears to be so important to Everton. He almost does the work of two men. This was very evident on Saturday. I think it’s kind of counter-productive though, because we’re almost sacrificing a creative wide position for a wide player’s defensive work-rate. I think this is also why Everton seem to just die at the end of games, players would need to be super fit to do what’s being asked and quite frankly they’re not. Look at the Spurs side and how hard they work and how fit they look. Unfortunately now, it’s got to the point when once we concede near the end everyone (fans and players included) just seem to know that we’re going to concede more. They have no faith in the system or themselves to see it through.

I’ve argued before about game management, once we take the lead in games, if we just reigned the full backs in and restricted their runs, then it’d put far less pressure on the midfield, and we’d be able to crowd certain areas of the pitch like we can in away games. It wouldn’t be defensive like parking the bus, it’s just playing smart and restricting the space for the opposition, and with the players Everton have on the counter, we’d probably be more dangerous than we are when we’re passing the ball around in the final third.

Maybe I didn’t put it across properly in my first post. I said to play the system he is trying to play, he needs a certain type of player in midfield and he doesn't have them. I don't think any team really does, his system is flawed. He needs to play a different one. I didn’t say we need more men in midfield to deny space, I said that’s the only time we look like we can defend, because we don’t have the ball to push out. So we end up in our own half and naturally it denies space. I don’t think Martinez sets Everton up to counter away from home, it appears to be just a by-product of being the away side and teams wanting to attack us in their own stadium. Same as when at home we play the likes of City and Spurs. They try to attack us and we get compacted in our own defensive third and are then able to counter with the players we have. But when we play sides who are happy to play for a point, we have to advance more and then gaps open up everywhere and the game becomes very open. Sunderland this season and Wolfsburg last were good examples of this, we won both but mainly because our forward play was better than theirs. Both sides had better chances in the games than we did.


Personally I don't think Barkley is limited at all, RM just doesn't give him enough defensive responsibility. Barkley has matured loads as a footballer and still will, it’s time he was asked to do some defensive work to add that side of his game and help the team.


It’s not up to me to come up with a system to play. Every game is different and every situation is different so it all depends on the fixture how you should set the side up. For example when we were 1-0 down vs a WBA side who had done the same thing the year before in parking the bus, we didn’t need 2 defensive midfielders but we did need proper width on both sides to stretch the game. But you wouldn’t start that system against Man City for example as it’s a different fixture. I think management has gone past the one size fits all approach. Look at Klopp at the rs, they destroyed City away when he went with a different system and sort of a ‘false 9’ with lots of movement off the forward line, then in the Cup Final he played with Sturridge as a striker and they looked awful. Back in the league and he goes back to the ‘false 9’ system and they hammer City again. You can argue he got the Cup Final wrong, but I’m using it here as an example that different systems can help produce different results.

"I said this in Martinez’ first season, for his system to work defensively, you would need players with an exceptional work-rate, mobility, and tactical discipline right throughout the midfield and full back areas."

"We just don’t have that in those positions, Barry doesn’t have the mobility to cover for the fullbacks when they push so high and McCarthy doesn’t have the tactical discipline. Besic offers a lot of those qualities to be fair, but Barkley is all but redundant when we don’t have the ball."

"Lennon has all of those qualities to be fair and that’s why he appears to be so important to Everton. He almost does the work of two men. This was very evident on Saturday. I think it’s kind of counter-productive though, because we’re almost sacrificing a creative wide position for a wide player’s defensive work-rate."

"We don’t have as many people in our defensive third, as we move up with the ball we then tend to commit too many players forward and leave ourselves man for man at the back."

We've moved on from that first season. This season, we've relied much more on Deulofeu and Lennon to provide the crosses than on the full backs. We have, of course, had to play without Baines and Coleman for some time.

We've been missing McCarthy in midfield, while Barry has been playing a much more constructive role - and playing it very effectively too. Besic and Mirallas could have contributed more, but they have been out injured, and both are liable to have their rash moments.

You seem to want more people in midfield, but think - in Lennon's case - that we’re almost sacrificing a creative wide position for a wide player’s defensive work-rate.

Given the limitations of work-rate, mobility and tactical discipline that you have identified, how high do you think a good manager could take this squad?

 

[oldblue]

Substitutions aside a lot of people were turning on Martinez before this game as you rightly said the tipping point was that Lennon substitution was suicidal, However if you are to truly gauge Martinez's progress so far you would have to look at the KPI's (key performance indicators) also known as the stats and you will see there that there are problems there the numbers don't lie.

Not going to go into the stats again as there are enough flying around for people to draw their own conclusion but me personally last week was the straw that broke the camels back. Don't get me wrong would love to see him succeed but from what I have seen so far that's not going to change

With regards to Miralles he has all the tools but lacks it in the last 10% so until he sorts that attitude out I think he will always liable to get sent off or have a sulk about sommit so not arsed if he decided to leave

To be honest I'm not a stats man despite or maybe because I was forced to study it for two years. It's gut feeling with me that we're on the right lines. I certainly didn't feel it this time last year and hard to pin down. As you say though the key is to still turn up wanting it to work. If that happens, who knows.

 

[Khalekan]

I can.

Yes....the missed penalty was the chance to kill Hammers off.

The turning point was the substitution.

 

[Toffeelover]

Slaven Bilic 'Everton can't deal with crosses into the box'

So if you accpet his word as gold doesn't that make martinez wrong stating that we have no problem defending crosses, or is Slaven only right some of the time when it suits what you want to hear?

Possibly if the penalty had gone in Bilic might have been right or perhaps they would have fought back to 3 all. Just speculation but the real truth is with better game management we should have been able to hold onto 2-0 or 2-1.

 

[BlueToff]

Yes....the missed penalty was the chance to kill Hammers off.

The turning point was the substitution.

That's my view on it.

The penalty miss is certainly a factor though, as is our dreadful defending and lack of leadership from on the pitch as soon as they scored their first.

 

[davek]

figurehead
ˈfɪɡəhɛd/
noun.

2. a nominal leader or head without real power

But that's just it, he does have power. He's the largest shareholder of a group of people who still are the majority share owners technically speaking. He's also a chairman of a board and, like it or not, has a lot of soft power amongst the support base and a legacy he'd want to protect as a man who never flinches when there's tumult around a manager.

This isn't a Carter-type honourary presidency with a phone in a broom cupboard to keep their ego boosted.

You cant just dismiss it so easily.

 

[BlueToff]

Possibly if the penalty had gone in Bilic might have been right or perhaps they would have fought back to 3 all. Just speculation but the real truth is with better game management we should have been able to hold onto 2-0 or 2-1.

The only thing that RM did wrong in that game was the sub. Ultimately it looks like a huge error and it's cost us big time with that win and I think swayed a lot more people into thinking he really can't learn

 

[Toffeelover]

The only thing that RM did wrong in that game was the sub. Ultimately it looks like a huge error and it's cost us big time with that win and I think swayed a lot more people into thinking he really can't learn

Unfortunately we seem to have had quite a few of those "errors" this season which have bit us in the rear end.

 

[Little Ralphy]

We've moved on from that first season. This season, we've relied much more on Deulofeu and Lennon to provide the crosses than on the full backs. We have, of course, had to play without Baines and Coleman for some time.

We've been missing McCarthy in midfield, while Barry has been playing a much more constructive role - and playing it very effectively too. Besic and Mirallas could have contributed more, but they have been out injured, and both are liable to have their rash moments.

You seem to want more people in midfield, but think - in Lennon's case - that we’re almost sacrificing a creative wide position for a wide player’s defensive work-rate.

Given the limitations of work-rate, mobility and tactical discipline that you have identified, how high do you think a good manager could take this squad?

But to create space for Deulofeu and Lennon to provide the cross, we are using the full back to make the forward run to commit the opposition full back. The result is the same, the full back is pushed on. Look at the conceded goal against Chelsea, we're 2-0 up and Oviedo bombs forward, it breaks down and Fabregas, under no pressure, hits a long pass to play in Costa who is man for man with Jags. Most sides would have an extra man at the back and not be man for man. At 2-0 up most sides wouldn't have Oviedo bombing forward either. That goal was easily avoided, but yet people will point to the contribution Jags/Howard made and think it was individual error, when in fact the route cause was the system.

On the left hand side we're pretty much still using the full back to provide the width and the cross. With the player ahead of him cutting inside. Be that Baines, Ovideo or Galloway, it's been largely the same.

Barry's role has been to take the ball from the defence and start the play. Barry has played well this season in what he has done, but in this system the game is so open when sides attack us he can't possibly cover enough ground to close off the space. Bear in mind I'm mostly talking about when we don't have the ball and the affects that our possession and attacking style, are having on the midfield. If you open the game up so much, like Martinez seems to do, then you need great mobility for the midfield to get back if it breaks down, and discipline for them not to get caught ahead of the play.

I know what I want, I want a system that suits the players we have. Not one that relies on players having extraordinary work rates to cover ground, or face having the game open up with loads of gaps for the opposition to exploit.

I want a manager who can organise the team to be able to defend crosses. If we don't have the aerial ability in the box to defend them, then we need to stop them coming in. But we neither put pressure on the ball, or attack the ball when it comes in to our own box. Earlier in the season, people blamed Howard for not coming for the crosses. Seems Joel doesn't either, and I believe it's because we don't pressure the ball and instead allow sides to pick out good crosses in to the box.

I think the squad Everton have is a really good one. I believe a better manager would get a lot more out of the players, by making the side harder to beat. Harder to break down, and play to the strengths of the players within the side. I honestly don't think it makes too much of a difference which players Martinez has in the side, if he continues to play the same system he does, then we will not be in full control of our own destiny and wont achieve anything. I don't think it'd take too much away from the attacking either. We'd just do it more efficiently.