Will we beat the ‘entertainers’

[tommytowne]

I was lucky enough to be at the last game of the first season of the Martinez reign, the away game at Hull.
I say lucky because for the first time in a long while we were on the cusp of something special.
I don't know where it all went wrong, others will let me know.
Forward a few years and we are back were we started. Ugly football and looking behind us instead of ahead.
The number of points we get is insignificant excepting the number we need to ensure safety.

 

[Timak]

Martinez was wrong for us.
Koeman was wrong for us.
Allardyce wrong for us.

Martinez had no excuses. He had a long contract and after a poor second season was given every chance to improve in his third. Just get them fit and organised at the back and we'd have been fine but he was too stubborn.

That can be seen by the fact Koeman came in and simply by organising a defence, getting them fit and practising set pieces got us 65 points.

What we needed after Martinez was a manager who could promote attractive attacking football AND deliver it AND do the basics of fitness and organisation.

Instead we got a manager in Koeman who had no vision of how he wanted to play.

Allardyce knows how he wants to play but the system is a proven failure.

 

[Saint Domingo]

I disagree with this mate. Simply because the likes of @davek and I do take the licks in respect of his second and third season. Further, we both concede that he was right to be sacked. What we ensure though, probably to the point of boring a large volume of the GOT family, is contextualise his performance as manager. We do this specifically in relation to those that say Martinez was a poor manager. Some even go as far to say he was as bad for the club as Mike Walker. Which is utterly bonkers.

What I believe, with absolute respect, is that you too - along with @Saint Domingo - are showcasing revisionism. For example, here you say:

"What went on over the next 2 seasons in the league was a disaster and a lot of it was caused by the manager himself."

Yes, some of it - and you use a good example with Southampton away - was down to him. Martinez nor his 'fans' can escape that. But what about the fact that he had no money, certainly where comparing to the funds in the hands of Koeman and Allardyce.

At the end of season 1, he had Distin and Howard fall off a cliff form-wise. Remember Distin vs Swansea away in the league cup early into RM's second season? Absolutely atrocious. Howard too went from a great season to a very poor one. Without any hint his form was to take such an alarming dip.

What would any manager do in that instance? He'd go out and buy a new CB and a new GK. He clearly didn't trust Joel as a number 1 (and said so publically). There is nothing wrong with buying a number 2 goalkeeper for emergency purposes only.

Where were the funds for this? He'd just saved 2 windows worth of cash / sales to bring in Lukaku for 28m.

"Yeah but what about Niasse". He had 13m to spend on a striker. It was a risk. If he had 25m to spend, would he have brought in Niasse? Of course he wouldn't. If he had £10m to spend on a CB like Koeman did on Williams, would he have brought in Alcaraz on a free? If he had £27m to spend on a further striker, would he have brought in Kone for £6m?

You cannot compare apples and pears. What is completely reasonable is to say that he inherited an ageing squad and got a season out of them that he had no right to do. His second season domestically was poor but I for one enjoyed us blitzing Wolfsburg home and away.

Third season, again not good enough. But again, he had peanuts to spend. Cleverley on a free. Deulofeu for 4m. Niasse. Funes Mori. He had to spread a very limited budget across an entire core.

Could he have done better with it. Possibly, I wouldn't disagree. To say though that everything was plain sailing yet he blew a hole in his own ship is just factually inaccurate.

No he would have spent it on Funes Mori which he did. Martinez broke our transfer record for a defender and striker as well as buying our second most expensive midfielder ever. He paid out our two highest loan fees in our history. He had plenty of money to spend, trying to compare it to the money Allardyce has spent is silly because the entire market has inflated for every body.

His major failure was not being able to replace the creative talents of Osman and Pienaar. He indulged his Fab Four beyond measure but would not recruit properly in other areas which is why when Moyes’ players declined we were left with an awful squad that was then made worse by Koeman.

Allardyce has to fix the squad now and I for one hope he takes a better approach to it that Martinez or Koemsn did.

 

[Saint Domingo]

Please stop talking about Martinez. With my utter hatred of the Fat Man I may actually start saying positives things about him

*thinks about West Ham at home
*thinks about Stoke at home

Think about Southampton away. 3 down, one shot on target, no subs. Sin Miedo.

 

[Jonte]

Roberto Martinez with the likes of Stones Barkley Deulofeu and Lukaku at his disposal guided us to two ‘phenomenal’ 11th place finishes in a row with 47 points in each. A ‘phenomenal’ achievement from a manager who had been given time to mould his own philosophy on his own squad and had by and large avoided serious injuries. One patronising BBC pundit even branded us ‘the Entertainers’

Big Sam picked up a squad that had come off the back of an awful period of recruitment, completely unbalanced, and in the midst of a crippling injury/confidence crisis. He no longer had one of the league’s best strikers (or any decent striker) and centreback at his disposal and has had no pre season to work with a group that are not his players. We currently sit on 31 points after 25 games. Allardyce has garnered 16 points from 11 league games (I’ve not counted West Ham).

He therefore needs 16 points from the remaining 13 games to equal Sin Miedo’s league performances with the entertainers. Considering that in his first 11 games he’s had Liverpool, United, Spurs, and Chelsea, and in his remaining 13 games he only has Liverpool, Arsenal and City i’m quite confident that he will achieve this.

How would the old cult population of GOT feel about their idol being overshadowed by a football dinosaur who received a hospital pass?

No fan of M******z, Saint, but in fairness he realised his achievements by not parking the bus.

 

[davek]

Martinez was wrong for us.
Koeman was wrong for us.
Allardyce wrong for us.
Martinez had no excuses. He had a long contract and after a poor second season was given every chance to improve in his third. Just get them fit and organised at the back and we'd have been fine but he was too stubborn.
That can be seen by the fact Koeman came in and simply by organising a defence, getting them fit and practising set pieces got us 65 points.

What we needed after Martinez was a manager who could promote attractive attacking football AND deliver it AND do the basics of fitness and organisation.

Instead we got a manager in Koeman who had no vision of how he wanted to play.

Allardyce knows how he wants to play but the system is a proven failure.

It was 61 points, not 65.

As @mkrudden points out above, there was a funding aspect to Martinez's time here too: in his second summer here he basically had to throw the whole of his budget at one player in Lukaku (for a fee his successors are liberally throwing at utter mugs to bring in by the bucket load, btw). His rebuilding of Moyes' ageing squad was stopped right there in its tracks.

Look, the whole thing around Martinez is confused. People say "he couldn't set up and defend" - when he obviously could, as Liverpool at home and away in three derbies found out when we hardly moved from our half and draws were ground out, or Spurs at WHL in his second season where we were sent out to sit very deep and frustrate - he just didn't WANT to do that for the majority of the time. He actually believed the players, many of which he didn't wish to keep, could continue to develop as footballers from that first season of progressive football. There was no other way for him, and those players either wouldn't or couldn't carry the game plan out...which is why he had to go.

But some people insist on showing their ignorance by arguing that Martinez was a poor coach. He's that poor that he was entrusted to take a WC favourite into the summer tournament, which he did with ease in a record breaking qualifying performance for that country.

Guess which top international nations would entrust their teams to Moyes? NONE.

 

[Connor]

Embarrassing.

 

[COYBL25]

Would be hilarious if a total as garbage as 47 got us 7th this season.

I think there is a far bigger issue however rather than just comparing two crap managers and that is for the best part of 5 years now we have, by and large, been utterly awful. Obviously Martinez's first season started off this period so that should be excluded as we were excellent. However for the next 4 years (up until now) apart from a spell between January-March in Koeman's only full season in charge we have been pish. We've gotten extremely used to losing games over the past 4 years and something needs to change.

Cull the squad at the end of the season, boot out Allardyce and start completely fresh.

This is the correct answer

 

[Mikey_Fitzgerald]

We would have definitely gone down this season if Martinez was at the helm

Might still with Allardyce yet mind

 

[mkrudden]

It was 61 points, not 65.

As @mkrudden points out above, there was a funding aspect to Martinez's time here too: in his second summer here he basically had to throw the whole of his budget at one player in Lukaku (for a fee his successors are liberally throwing at utter mugs to bring in by the bucket load, btw). His rebuilding of Moyes' ageing squad was stopped right there in its tracks.

Look, the whole thing around Martinez is confused. People say "he couldn't set up and defend" - when he obviously could, as Liverpool at home and away in three derbies found out when we hardly moved from our half and draws were ground out, or Spurs at WHL in his second season where we were sent out to sit very deep and frustrate - he just didn't WANT to do that for the majority of the time. He actually believed the players, many of which he didn't wish to keep, could continue to develop as footballers from that first season of progressive football. There was no other way for him, and those players either wouldn't or couldn't carry the game plan out...which is why he had to go.

But some people insist on showing their ignorance by arguing that Martinez was a poor coach. He's that poor that he was entrusted to take a WC favourite into the summer tournament, which he did with ease in a record breaking qualifying performance for that country.

Guess which top international nations would entrust their teams to Moyes? NONE.

This. And nothing but this.

 

[chrismpw]

Yeah, but measure him up against Roberto's first season. It's mathematically impossible for Sam to surpass 72 points already, and I've got the pie charts to prove it

Mmmmmmmmmmmm pies

 

[kev101]

Come the second half, they'll be passing it around us like we weren't there.

 

[chrismpw]

Let me get this straight, we are discussing whether Fat Sam is as cr#p as Martinez, I find it difficult to choose and my crapometer is broke.

You'll probably find after the last season or so it's gone right off the scale and stuck.

It should respond to a tap on the glass and a dose of sawdust.

 

[mkrudden]

We would have definitely gone down this season if Martinez was at the helm

Might still with Allardyce yet mind

I genuinely don't see how such a reasoned and decent poster can say something so unreasonable.

Our record signing was Lukaku with 28m who as you know we sold for 75m.

You're saying that with an open chequebook instead of a limited budget which needed spreading thinly, we not only wouldn't be where we are now, we'd be worse than Swansea / WBA etc over the course of 38 games.

This is just pure speculation. I can't say with any meaning that we would be 4th or 5th or 7th etc... but by the same token, you can't say we'd be 18th-20th. He has never had the money afforded to Allardyce in this window and Koeman throughout his stay.

 

[Azzurri]

Martinez was eventually outed as a bit of a clown, but he gave us more in one season than Allardyce ever will.