There is no level below the elite that you have to necessarily be at and move to the next level. Did Leicester and West Ham this season need that plateau to move off from? It's all a gloop of nothingness between elite and relegation fodder. One team or two per season breaks from the mess to figure at the top end and trouble the elite. That's the pattern. The only thing consistent 6th and 7th place spots got for us under Moyes was a pat on the head from the patronising pundits. It led to nothing and was leading nowhere.
The number of points is an important benchmark to be set. That's the issue here, not what it didn't get. That now is the total to be surpassed by this club in order to get a sniff of a CL place. If you think it's unimportant staging post then you're wrong. It stands out as a reminder that we can compete to that level and amass that number of points. More-so now it has relevancy, because if there's cash there to boost our competitiveness then there's no excuse never to fail to meet it or run it very close indeed. Moyes took us to 65 points; Martinez to 72 points. Martinez and his successor will have to better that now to progress us on.
Martinez didn't get Swansea to the PL because he never rally had a shot at it. He took them up to the Championship then finished 8th first season there. A very good stage for someone to come in and finish off the job when he got off to Wigan. Talk about damned with faint praise: he gave Swansea a modern history.
These achievements at Swansea and Wigan and his first season at Everton are scoffed at by people who should know better. "Ahh, it was ages ago and it was only a style of play and single promotion/an FA Cup win/it was only 72 points". As if we've had anything remotely like that to shout about from an Everton manager for the past 20 years!
Very blase and arrogant about our real status as a club that's huge but been in the doldrums for way too long to look down its nose at a manager like Roberto, that's for sure.
Ok mate, so premiership points totals matter hugely is what you are saying and they should be used as a barometre of where we are headed
2004-05 38 12 2 5 24 15 6 5 8 21 31 -1 61 4th
2005-06 38 8 4 7 22 22 6 4 9 12 27 -15 50 11th
2006-07 38 11 4 4 33 17 4 9 6 19 19 +16 58 6th
2007-08 38 11 4 4 34 17 8 4 7 21 16 +22 65 5th
2008-09 38 8 6 5 31 20 9 6 4 24 17 +18 63 5th
2009-10 38 11 6 2 35 21 5 7 7 25 28 +11 61 8th
2010-11 38 9 7 3 31 23 4 8 7 20 22 +6 54 7th
2011-12 38 10 3 6 28 15 5 8 6 22 25 +10 56 7th
2012-13 38 12 6 1 33 17 4 9 6 22 23 +15 63 6th
2013-14 38 13 3 3 38 19 8 6 5 23 20 +22 72 5th
2014-15 38 7 7 5 27 21 5 4 10 21 29 -2 47 11th
Their you go last season martinez managed the lowest total by the club over the proceeding 10 years, so yup one great points total and it was followed by the worst points total by this club in 11 years, we havent had a lot to shout about for a long time granted, but last season was the first one in the last 11 that i felt we had a genuine chance to go down in, clap clap Bobby, great job
