How to play on the back foot and win!

We just need the 3 wins as soon as possible to secure our PL survival, then it’s time for the ’Martinez out!’ banners. This season is a shambles and it ain’t gonna get any better next season with this Spanish cretin!

"Predictions? I don’t do predictions and I never will."

Come On You Blues!

But a Win today will help.

If they had a decent striker they’d be 2 up by now. What the fuck was Howard doing kicking it out to one of them, I know they’re in blue and white Timmy but.....

I’ll, er, get me coat.

Having swapped that magnificent Kiev stadium for Loftus Road, you can smell the season’s anticlimax, survival points are the game.

Stones playing well... where was he on Thursday???

Everton are fucking shite, this has to be the worst Everton team I can remember from recent year’s.
QPR will win this now.

Get ready for the usual bollocks of from Martinez about small margins and it being "a fascinating game"

I really really hate this Everton side.

NOW COME ON EVERTON..

FUCKING DEFEND THIS!!

How we won that, I don’t know... but who cares!

Lennon – well deserved goal for all the effort that he’s been putting in....

Defensive struggles – when will they end?

The stream I watched had Ray Houghton as commentator. One of the most biased commentaries I’ve ever heard. He was clearly rooting for QPR all game. Why do we always have to have a former RS player? It’s not as if any of them are actually any good either.

I just hope Rom’s isn’t a bad hammy, thought it was too much to see him sprint like that!

Great goal by Seamus and good work by Jags and Stones, to keep us in the game.

Let’s get to the end of the season, then hopefully we can identify what has gone wrong this season. Whether that’s the manager and his tactics, the established players who don’t like his methods, European distractions, or whatever other excuses come out for this abomination of a season.

Whatever happens, I just hope this is the last season Tim Howard is in the Everton goal. Utterly useless and has cost us big time this season.

No prospect of Roberto being replaced in the immediate future so the only excitement the summer will bring will surround who is staying and who is coming in.

I’ve decided today to move to slightly warmer climes for the next few months so no more talk of Wigan and their ex-manager can be expected from me. BK has made his bed now he can LIE in it – even if it’s only to himself!

Have a great summer!

Praise be that Stones was back. Lennon is earning his corn now, and I don’t just mean the goal. Gibson for Barry, let’s hope that’s permanent. But ...

Does Howard inspire anyone with confidence? And Kone got a couple of things right, but how many times did we lose possession when he passed?

Not too far off safety now, and then? Changes have to come surely. And it doesn’t have to be expensive. I don’t see why we can’t have Garbutt and Baines on the same starting line-up for example.

Got to hope that Rom isn’t badly injured as watching the rest of the season without him would be even less fun.

And finally, hope you have a good time in warmer climes Phil. You’ll be missed!

My opinion is that Martinez is not the answer but we probably should face facts and realise the cold hard reality, his job is safe for this season and probably at least until the end of the year.

And most of all credit to those Blues who made the trip today, I salute you to a man and woman. To watch Thursday’s omnishambles and make the trip and support the team wholeheartedly is an example a few on here could well heed.

Martinez looks doomed in my eyes but even he must know that home defeats against sides we have a good record against will be the end of him. Wins against piss poor Magpies and QPR sides cannot mask the dreadful inadequacies of our defensive set up, which was so cruelly exposed in Kiev.

Although driving 150 miles today, so not much time for footie, caught a glimpse of the RS today, and concluded that they are a terrible team, but lucky..

On the other hand, under the tutelage of our mad manager, we have simply been terrible, but without the luck.

Apart from today, that is.

Keep on grinding out wins,lads, and leave the better times to next season..

We can but hope....

I’m really not a fan of Lennon at all. Today again, his passing and crossing was poor; he does work hard (which I applaud him for) but he really is just a headless chicken. The thought of him and Cleverly coming here in the summer doesn’t inspire me with any hope. We need much better players than those 2.

I just can’t wait for this nightmare of a season to end. It looks like we are stuck with Martinez for another season (unfortunately) but I just hope he signs some creative players in the summer and has a big clear out of the deadwood.

All the results went well for us this weekend.
And I mean ALL of them (snigger).
38 seconds on the pitch and Stevie Me is sent off.
After his slip last season, I never thought I’d say that I’m starting to warm to him (cackle).

I often abstain from drinking on Sunday night (mainly because of Monday morning) but I’ve got a bottle of Fursty Ferret in and a full bottle of wine.

It hasn’t happened much this season but MOTD2 and Singing The Blues ......

Agree completely, but can we trust the delusional half-wit to sign any decent players?

I would not give him my money.

He is a light in a very dark tunnel, despite what some folks say.

He does need to learn from this moving forward and if he does we can still achieve success under his reign.

I will probably get slack for this, but a tiny part of me wanted us to lose and Roberto get the sack tomorrow (and of couse I want us to stay up with his replacement).

The thoughts of RM, Howard, Barry and Alcaraz being around for another season is depressing to say the least.

I am not holding my breath though.

And if he is the problem, at what point does Bill get rid? And who would we attract?

So depressing.

More like a Moyes performance than last year’s edition. Long clearances... very little in the way of midfield control or hold up play. The players seem to realise the situation they are in; at least that much has got through.

We are in the crapper, Every high ball into our box is an adventure... is it me or can Tim bail out the defenders once in a while and come for a high ball? Even a low one!

Still, the points were the key; thank the lord we got them, particularly for the traveling support. Who knew this season would be back to worrying about relegation.

I’ve made the decision to pull down the curtain early on Everton’s season as there’s nothing left to play for. Let’s just hope next season will see our club back where it belongs..........

Fighting to finish sixth!

Haven’t listened to Martinez’s comments but I suppose that will come up with the usual, phenomenal ,showing character and QPR are a strong team plus the rest of his bullshit comments that make supporters who were there wondering what game he watched.

Cannot wait for May to come and hopefully we are safe and maybe the 8ft snow drifts around my house will be gone. (Doubt very much if Martinez will be gone as well.)

Gibson was my MOM with Stones and Jagielka not far behind. The rest were average but did show some genuine determination, which was evident the way some of them celebrated the final whistle - good to see. Thank god Naismith didn’t play and Ross needs to be used sparingly for the rest of the season and we might be more balanced.However, Osman’s complete lack of pace and strength when played out wide is a nonsense to me and I would rather see someone from the reserves given a chance.

3 points makes everything feel better though.

Kenwright and he must be the most sickly-sentimental-delusional combination in world football.

I see the press and RM are giving Kone great praise = staggering.

It’s all staggering.

There is no sanity any more.

Kone is not up to much, but despite his poor play, he seemed to give everyone else more space just by being around. A problem, but not a big one.

Osman remains lightweight, but his skill and ability to twist and turn fairly often results in effective forward movement.

Seamus Coleman is one of the saddest sights on a football pitch. From the very beginning I have liked his ’get-your-head-down-and-run-at-them’ attitude and his willingness to attack defenders and get into the penalty area. He has a lovely uninhibited attitude. Which has now been crushed into a "don’t lose the ball at any costs" approach which means he turns and passes backwards most times. I want my Seamus back!

But the worst, by an astonishing degree, is Howard. He looks like the school playground goalie - the last player picked - who hasn’t got a clue. He doesn’t come for the ball, regularly a defender retreats into the penalty area sheltering the ball from an opponent, and when he turns and expects the goalie to pick it up, there’s no one there. His entire goalkeeping tactic appears to do a star jump and fall backwards. He never attacks the ball, he never tries to catch in the goal area, and it appears that Everton’s entire defence tactics consist of Jagielka and Stones diving in with blocks or stopping shots on the line.

His positioning stinks - if I were an opposition manager, I’d be targetting Howard from the first minute: "No matter where you are, have a shot", and "Any crosses more than 6 yards out will not be contested by the goalkeeper", and "If you are 20-25 yards out try lobbing him". Essentially, provided you don’t shoot directly at Howard (who will be trying to get out of the way), you will beat him.

Finally, just how unfit is this team? I’m 62 and I do 90 minutes of taekwondo 2-3 times a week, we warm up, we run, we go up and down the hall kicking stuff, we do axe kicks (high kicks bringing down the foot onto an opponent’s head), side kicks, back kicks, jumping rotating kicks ... and although it’s all explosive movement, injures are rare and I have seen only two hamstring injuries in 6 years. Lukaku, one third of my age and in much better form, runs 20 metres at reasonable speed and does a hamstring. I’d be looking very hard at the training staff.

Big respect to the blue nose who spent the 2nd half in just his pants!

I agree that Kone is now at best a championship player but he basically hurt himself trying to get the win for us. Lennon doesn’t get the goal if Kone doesn’t bravely go in and sacrifice himself. Hope he’s OK and recovers to play on with another team.

The reason I bring Kone up is because I’m sick of 2 cowards that we have on our team. Howard and Barkley are not fit to play for Everton and the sooner the 2 of them are gone the better this team will be.

I figured Rom would pick up the dreaded ’Belgian end of season hammy’ but I’m not surprised as these injuries usually appear with nothing to play for.

Really want to stuff Southampton in 2 weeks to get back at them for the loss last year which basically ended our CL hopes. I think now with 1 game per week the pressure is off but June and July will be the most important few months for the club in a long time.

I know it would be brave of BK to sack him at the end of the season but I hope he does, that would give the new man a pre season and a transfer kitty and time to assess the squad rather than wait till Xmas and if we have to wait till then for BK to sack him then that will mean we are in the bottom 3.

Unless Bill gets an answer that satisfies him (especially on the shoes)...

Great post, especially about the training staff. There. Is something greatly amiss about their methods. Who are they?

Did they come with the manager? I do recollect some kind of exodus from Finch Farm a while back.

Generally though, the team’s fitness levels may not be up to scratch.

Sorry guys! He’s wearing the Baines shirt for the rest of his life now!!!

Howard has become very much a line keeper with no interest in travelling out for a ball. I believe this to be the biggest contribution to his terrible record this season. Martinez needs to either buy a keeper in the summer or put his faith in Robles, a player he bought! De Gea had an early torrid time at Man Utd but has matured into a fine keeper. Can Robles also do that?

Stones and Jags together with McCarthy’s help did a job. Besides his goal, Lennon’s workrate was excellent and does so until drops. I agree that Kone was poor but along with Lukaku, early in the game they did show you can defend from the front.

Where does this leave Martinez with Gareth Barry? Nowhere really. QPR home and away and last Sunday’s game show his name should no longer be on the team sheet apart from injuries. I see no point in playing him for the remainder of the season. The same goes for Mirallas who doesn’t make a 90-min contribution. If Martinez can isolate Distin (unreasonably in my eyes) then he can do the same to Barry and Mirallas.

Let’s just try and look forward to the final games of the season.

There were a number of Yanks at the game today who couldn’t believe they were actually seeing the great man in the flesh.

You are correct about entrusting the quarter-wit the transfer dosh. He will buy shite.

Problem is you want a keeper like Lloris who roams and Howard doesn’t play that style. I admit there are different styles and be honest for once about the style you want in the box. BTW, Robles the Savior is not that style either. Go watch his Wigan appearances and his U-23 Spanish appearances and tell me what you see please.

I don’t mind people not liking a player when they are honest about it. Please don’t try to disguise it by manufactured "fact".

Easy to gauge too - I watched in the pub and every 20 seconds there was a pained cry of (take your pick) of "Jesus wept!!" "For fuck’s SAKE Everton" "Get fucking RID!!" etc

(Oh, and one "Come and collect it you Taliban headed twat!")

As for Kone, the only acceptable explanation for that performance would be if someone had covered him all over in those flippers you get on pinball tables.

You are wrong about Coleman, Osman and Howard. But it was nice to hear about your tae kwon do, especially as a sixties exercise class is so relevant to Premier League football.

In the summer we need a clear out - Howard, Osman, Hibbert, Barry, Distin, Pienaar (too old and/or slow), Mirallas, Barkley, (too lazy), Alcaraz, McGeady, Atsu, Kone (not Premier League quality).

But is Martinez the one to trust with a transfer kitty? Of his signings, Lukaku and McCarthy are PL quality but way over-priced, Besic and Kone are squad/bench players, again over-priced, and Atsu, Alcaraz and McGeady should never have worn our shirt and Robles is one for the future. As for Barry – a three-year contract for a 33-year-old? The rest of the football world must have been pissing themselves!

But we are stuck with him for another season at least. I am disappointed as I imagined that with his European contacts we would have a stream of cheapish high-quality Latin imports.

We may already have enough points in the bag to survive this season but it is very scary to see how it may have panned out with only a few more bad results. It’s a good job the fans got angry at Goodison, as it seems to have given just enough motivation for the team to gain those most valuable six points in the last two games.

By the way, your assessment on Howard was spot on. Howard is ruining his legacy as being our best GK in the last 30 years behind, Southall and Martyn. I’d take Richard Wright back as a safer pair of hands than him right now. The thought of him remaining in goal for another season will give me an ulcer.

I hate watching us play and I hate listening to Bobby bullshit. With this squad we should be smashing teams in the bottom half.

I give up.

What we have seen this season has not been good enough and that includes Ross Barkley. Everton are not that bad when in possession but when not they are all over the place chasing shadows forcing too much pressure on the back four. This was so evident yet again today against a side like QPR.

As someone posted earlier, Everton somehow contrived to make QPR look like world beaters. If they play like that in the next game against the Saints, they won’t be so lucky.

We all know Barry will be brought back in next game, I would love to get over the Polaroids Barry has of Roberto, pass them on to Bobby on condition he sticks with Gibson.

I am just waiting for a player to get injured in training, or bobby catching a midfielders foot in the door, to allow Barry to come straight back in.

More importantly, in what way am I wrong about Howard (an flappy, cowardly liability saved from serial ignominy by Jagielka and Stones), Coleman (a proven excellent, intuitive player crippled, it would seem, by managerial instructions) or Osman (does get knocked off the ball, so lightweight, but does work well in tight situations).

The past two weeks have unequivocally confirmed for me that Gareth Barry should not be the ’go-to guy’ for Martinez. He is too slow and does not contribute in the final third. Gibson was excellent and deserves to stay in the team for the long term. His partnership with McCarthy continues to flourish with the pair being able to play off each other really well. At Newcastle, McCarthy ventured forward and today that was true for Gibson.

I now hope that Lukaku’s hamstring was not so badly injured. For all of the comments about the training staff and how ’unfit’ the team is we have to agree that these players are playing at a level that very few (if any) of us understand. Lukaku started that run in his own half and was going full out past the eighteen yard line (not 20 metres).

Let’s get behind our boys and push them on up the table. COYB’s

Another step closer to safety, more down to QPR’s ineptness. But that is the luck we need.

This clown can’t be in charge for much longer surely.

I remember watching a show on the BBC about Swansea last year and there was segment where Martinez was interviewed. He said many Swansea fans would say they needed to go back to 4-4-2 once they got promoted to the Championship. His reaction was that 4-4-2 didn’t fit with how he thought the game should be played.

So I’ll give him credit for the last 2 league games, although I bet that part of him is secretly seething that this formation that he probably deems as archaic is grinding out results. Long may it continue.

I just want us to scrape past the post and get rid of Martinez. I suspect, though, that this piss poor show today is enough for our formless chairman to start next season with our fool.

I hope Martinez is given at least one more season because either this season or last season was an aberration and non of you know really which one it is so I’d be very careful your not to quick to throw the baby out with the bath water. He is either the total clown that some of you think he is or he’s solid gold genius like he was last season. All I know is that there were times last season when we were a total joy to watch, easily the match of teams that have resources that are massive compared to ours. I think you would all do well to remember that.

There were as you say a few memorable games last season, Arsenal home and away; doing the double against United, the Goodison derby, the display at Villa Park and perhaps the crucial first win of the season against Chelsea, now I’m struggling to remember any more outstanding performances from the last campaign.

We also saw a surrender in the FA Cup at the Emirates and abject performances at Southampton, Cardiff and Palace. Notice how well we did against most of the top teams last season and how relatively poor the results and performances against most of those teams have been this season.

Given that most of our victories this term have come against teams from the lower half of the table, I can’t see how we can take any view other than we have fallen down the pecking order in the Premier League.

If Martinez does remain in charge, I hope he does manage to get us back to where we think we should be, but seeing how most of the decent sides have sussed our style out this season - last season we caught most of them on the hop - I think our days of top eight or better being almost guaranteed are possibly over unless of course we happen to bring in better and hungrier players in the next window and the manager picks the right combination to maximise Everton’s chances of beating our opponents.

Stones and Jags were great, so why, oh why didn’t the boss start with them in Kiev? And as for his comments regarding adapting to Europe! I wonder what planet he is living on.

You are wrong because the root of the problem is not the players you like to vilify but the system deployed and the management of the club.

All the players you single out have proven their abilities over a number of years, and in the case of Ossie and Tim, two players who are amongst the highest number of appearances for this club ever.

My natural reaction to such players is to support them and challenge some of the ridiculous over the top criticism that is spouted on here. A goal hasn’t gone in in the last couple of months where Tim is not getting the blame. Thursday he gets beaten by two worldies and he’s badly positioned. I would freely admit he’s not been at his best at times but I also think he has not been helped by the players in front of him.

As for you suggestion I should support Liverpool
(which I may point out is a big no no on here and has seen people banned) let me quote Malcom Tucker.

"When I want your advice, I will give you a special signal, that will be when I am sectioned under the Mental Health Act"

We showed some character & spirit considering this was on the back of a shambolic performance on Thursday & a 3,000-mile roundtrip from Kiev. Well done.
Thank fuck Alcaraz wasn’t playing. Hope he never wears the Blue again.

Of course, we were never in danger of the drop, our lads defend magnificently and the manager is adaptable enough to get a result when it counts.

Everton under Moyes had settled into a level where it was accepted that we would never be good enough to break into the elite little bunch at the top but we would always just good enough to finish somewhere in the top 10. How many times did Moyes say that his first goal was to secure 40 pts?

Unless you catch lightening in a bottle, it takes several transfer markets before you can really say that the team on the field is any given manager's team but I think it's pretty obvious that the group of players that we have today is a massive improvement on the team that Positive Bob inherited.

The jury I agree is still out on the preparation and coaching but I think that just given time and the overhauling of the center of the defense, this same group of players and manager would produce a vastly improved style of play and consistently better results.

Each player is evaluated as a defender, an attacker, and in possession. The only one of any consequence for a goalkeeper is in defence. Mingolet scores 392, Fabianski 494, Foster 110. Tim Howard scores –100, yes, minus 100.

For some opaque reason he scores 67 for "possession" (a bit of a mystery given his almost invariable ’punch to the opposition’ style of goalkeeping). As such, he is the lowest scoring keeper in the Premier League. His positioning is terrible, his commitment is absent, his goalkeeping style ’star jump and lie down’ is shocking, and exactly why he was crawling around on the ground when QPR scored yesterday is a total mystery.

What exactly poor Robles has done wrong is beyond my understanding. He started nervously but was clearly improving and gaining confidence with every game he played. He may not be another Neville Southall, but he’s almost certainly the best mature goalkeeper on Everton’s books at present.

As for Osman, I think he’s an excellent player, but there isn’t much of him and he usually comes off second best in any kind of physical competition and he’s getting on a bit so playing him for 90 minutes is probably not the best tactic.

It’s not criticism, it’s like saying that since Messi is 5-ft 7-in, he can’t be expected to win many Duncan Ferguson style contested headers from corners in the penalty area.

Mate, you either have the driest humour ever or need some caffeine in the mornings.

I can’t slag RM off anymore because it’s beginning to feel like I am bullying him. So I will just echo the comments of Roger (#146): Tally-Ho chaps, pip-pip, hurrah and 3 cheers for good old Bobby he’s a smashing fellow

Center of the defense:
Jags suffered from a World Cup hangover at the beginning of season
Distin just got too old all of a sudden
Howard goes kind of mental... is it age?
Barry, never fast, became glacial this year,
Creative Midfielders:

Pienaar hasn't played
Osman hardly played
McCarthy missed a lot of the season
Gibson hardly played
Barkley missed a lot of the season
Barry too slow

And we wonder why we are not in the top four?CWhich manager would have done better do you think?