Wigan... This is Wigan

Martinez has now brought in most of the players he wants, and our defence is among the worst in the league. On paper we have potentially the best back 4 in the league, while Barry and McCarthy are hardly mugs in front of them. But our shape is all wrong. Our full backs attack way too much, leaving us stretched in defence. We also struggle to see a game out when we are winning, and our defending at set pieces could be better.

The only way to fix this would be to work on our defensive shape. Martinez clearly isn’t going to do this. We need a defensive coach, like Steve Bould helps Wenger at Arsenal. Unless this happens, it’s a question of when, not if, the manager will be relieved of his duties.

Other than sitting on the bench that is.

Players should have a say in formation and their abilities should be pushed in certain formations to find the fluid football we all love to see!!! Brazil springs to mind?? I get his passion but come on we need action and less bullshit talk. But fucking fight!! Or any other decision against us!! You crack on and earn the play!!!

It’s not all phenomenal but we busted you all over the park!! That’s what we want to feel at the end of a game!! That’s what we want not tippy-tappy shite!!! Give me 11 Big Duncs and smash em all!!! COYB

One of Match of the Days favourite terms is ’hunting in packs’ and is often showed as a graphic in the post-match analysis, when a team has been particularly strong in putting pressure on the opposition. It is not a term that can be applied to Everton under Martinez. Even as Man City crossed the half way line last night, there was often only one Everton player attempting to contain them by standing 7-8 yards off. Under Moyes, Everton would form a box around the player in possession with one player putting the opposition player under extreme pressure.

In addition to our defensive midfielders often being out of position (yes, it’s the midfielders, rather than the defenders!) the above is, for me, part of the reason we are so hopeless at stopping goals. Cases have been made that we’ve been the victims of a lot of poor refereeing decisions, individual errors and unlucky deflections but on last night’s evidence, we’re just not preventing the chances being created in the first place.

For me, the man at fault for this is the manager. From March 2014 onwards (approaching two years) we have been poor and have under achieved given the quality of players we have at our disposal. In my opinion, two years is enough of a grace period, and enough time for a manager to begin to show he has the expertise to right the wrongs. Roberto has, sadly, shown nothing and Everton should thank him for his services and show him the door. Give a new manager (and there are plenty out there) the next three months to get to grips with the team, the club and his staff so we can hit the ground running come August.

Pressing, ironically enough, is what the opposition do to us every game. You can see why, pressing leads to pressure, pressure leads to mistakes, mistakes lead to chances. It’s what you would expect any team at this level to do. Apparently it doesn’t fit into our current managers "philosophy".

This is a guy that was only ever held together at club level by the far superior Nemanja Vidic and at international level by John Terry and Sol Campbell.

I’m more concerned by the levels of shockingly under-9’s standard of defending witnessed at Everton this past two year’s.

Martinez has proven now he is not the correct tutor to further advance the career of John Stones, it’s not even worth going for a defensive coach like Alan Stubbs because he’ll be useless to a man who won’t have it any other way than his own.

The season is effectively dead now, we are playing to get to that magical 40 point mark before April, which given our lack of wins won’t be easy as it sounds.

After that the board, whoever it may be have a huge decision to make that could greatly impact the future of this football club.

"It would be easy to say we can’t compete against the top four and accept what we are and fight for short-term targets; like the next game.

We should be assessing what a team achieves but it should be at the end of the campaign," he said. "It would be wrong to assess it now when your views are a bit away from reality. "It’s important we support the players and allow them to learn then at the end of the season assess. "When you assess a team’s run it’s down to results. Our young players are developing at a very fast rate. We have good options all over the pitch but we need to become better. We need to improve. At the moment we’re not winning every weekend and that’s what we want.

"In any winning team you have to go through pain. The only thing that matters now is Sunday and performing well."

I’m sorry Roberto, but if we had have judged your performance at the end of last season, your job would have been at risk, how can we expect to be pleasantly surprised this season, when we are struggling to win many games, particularly in the Premier League and are only slightly better off points wise compared to the same stage last term.

As for the only thing that matters now is Sunday and performing well comment, it actually doesn’t really matter how well we perform if we are not in the hat on Monday does it? In fact at the moment it is more important to win games by hook or by crook and the style or manner of those victories if they occur is less important, and if those victories don’t materialise soon, the next long-term plan will be how to escape from the Championship, but obviously you will have moved on because you don’t have the stomach for a promotion battle do you?

How many of us will be here to bother is hardly worth thinking about!

RM’s press utterings are only confusing when you try and understand the details of what he is saying.

If you apply the filter that he is clueless about management of a football team and talks utter bollocks, suddenly everything falls into order and makes perfect sense.

There is only one way with this clown and that is downwards. He started with a healthy top 5 club and he is now advocating that being mid-table and having a semi-final is progressing. I am in despair that he is still here. The life and joy has been sucked out of me going to the game due to his awful football style and no winning policy.

He can't go soon enough for me. Never good enough in the first place. I have had a season ticket for years and this is the first time I have questioned renewing it. Get rid as soon as, he is a joke.

Thanks for highlighting what RM said at his press conference, he annoys me that much I purposely don't listen to his press conferences anymore. I see you quote him as saying " At the moment we are not winning every weekend and that's what we want". I think he should have said " we don't win any weekend".

This is a plea for more time, from both the board and the fans. But this is his 3rd season and most of the players have been here since he came. So its not as if he is rebuilding, and yes we all agree young players make mistakes, but he doesn't seem to want to correct those mistakes. In fact quite the opposite he encourages Stones to do Cruyff turns in his own box, he wants to try and turn Barkley into Zidane.

Surely he should be teaching Stones when and where to play football, and not encouraging him to play from any position. He should also have Barkley playing just off Lukaku, he has two good feet and a good shot in both, but the role RM has him playing means he is having to run 30 yards before he gets near our opponents box.

"The players are starting to realise what it takes to becomes winning team"

What??

We have won 6 games all season and games against the better teams in the league are nearly all defeats or draws at best.

We won 21 matches in your first season Roberto and genuinely looked like we were starting to realise what it takes to be a winning team but the last two season’s has seen us going backwards.

They say stability then progress forward is the way in football, but after a 6th place (Moyes last season) and 5th place finish, the last two years can’t be seen as either stable or progressive.

We are on a downward slope.

Whereas others were disdainful of Moyes’s straight bat minimalist answers, I found his evident contempt and sharp-tongued ripostes (on occasions) to banal journalists’ questions quite amusing.

Early doors I enjoyed Roberto’s upbeat positivity. Now, I’m afraid, for those so inclined to scrutinize his every utterance, he gives them plenty of sticks to beat him with.

His comments today are among them.

He opens by saying "It would be easy to say we can’t compete against the top four and accept what we are and fight for short-term targets, like the next game."

By the end of the presser he concludes: "The only thing that matters now is Sunday and performing well."

Roberto, that is a direct contradiction of what you said just a few minutes earlier.

The lad is under pressure, there is no doubt.

Half-way there, my arse – we are finished if he does not go NOW!!!

Agree about Rio, "if my mouth is moving I am distorting facts or trying to sell something," Ferdinand but your comment about Vidic reminded me of a topic I thought to post but have not. Vidic has been released from his contract with Italy and is probably past it as an everyday player. While there are rumours of him being linked to the MLS, the thought is that the travel and physicality of the league might be too much for him.

However, couldn’t he be brought in as a consulting defensive trainer or some such title to teach defense to these guys? Surely the money it would cost would be a drop in the bucket versus teaching Funes Mori, Galloway, and Browning. think of the value it would add to Stones if he actually could defend as a center back? Also, stopping the leaking of goals and winning games would increase the league position and ultimately mean more money to the club at season’s end. Seems a no-brainer to me to approach the guy.

Vidic was a beast of a defender and was arguably the backbone on Man Utd’s 2008 Champions League success.

I’d actually offer him a playing contract until the end of the season too as well as coach!

Martinez needs someone to come in and understand what’s going on with this defensive set-up, or rather non set-up.

Watching the Swansea game last week, my missus asked me after 20 minutes, "Why do they have lots of space around them when they have ball?" I just shrugged and told her to be quiet... but, if she can see it, why can’t the manager!

Sort it out.

1 - Poor 17%

2 - Average. 10%

3 - Good 3%

4 - Excellent 1%

Say no more!

A team that plays like this without the fast thinkers and quick feet needed for it will simply lose the ball a lot in positions where you do not want to lose it. And that is what is happening to us. We are not Barcelona.

Barcelona and Bayern don't play like this. That's total myth. Those clubs, instructed by Guardiola, quickly get the ball out of their half. They don't take risks with defenders passing it around their own area.

Instead they quickly get the ball up the pitch and then dominate possession in their opponent's half. They force the opposition back. They don't invite the opposition to press them in their own half.

David, agree on that. The association to Barca has to stop. We’re not playing like them. The closest we had been was season one and that is a fluke.

Dennis (#30) – I wasn’t saying we are playing like Barcelona, in contrary. I was trying to say that we do not play like Barcelona. That is exactly the reason why we are letting in so many goals.

David (#29) – I disagree with you but it might be in semantics. Barcelona does play this way, only they do it quick while we take hours to get the ball up field. The best way to show you is a moment where Barcelona do it wrong and let a goal in.

Sorry for the crap quality:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvyfShNeotg

Start around 1:15. They are playing it around at the back like we do, they get cornered, lose possession and are out of position to defend. This is quite similar to some of our matches. Thing is, Barcelona get this say once every match and it doesn’t always lead to a goal. We have it all the time. Because we are so much slower.

We do not play like Barcelona. We seem to take one piece of their philosophy without having the players for it, so we execute that one piece very badly.