Martinez Clean Sheet Evaded... Just

I disagree with your summing up of Gibson though, he`s becoming a waste of space to me and I thought him and Osman were woeful. They are so static and partly the reason we got cut through so easily. We are crying out for a little nasty worker in the middle of the park.

The good vibes I had took a knock watching that yesterday, let's hope things improve next week, but unless we buy again it's going to be a rocky season if you ask me.

I was sat not far away from you I think. The thing I notice, and I think the people sat around noticed too, is this playing out from the back business... How do I put the politely??? WE ARE GOING TO BE FUCKED!!!

The tempo of the match was very slow but Betis were pressing and when a midfielder comes deep to collect to ball he is facing the keeper. Jags and Distin are 50 yards apart and Ossie or whoever is on the ball has nowhere to go apart from back to Howard.

In the Premier League in a much higher tempo game you are going to get raped prision-style no lube but maybe a bit of swarfega for extra pain!

Barkley for me looks raw but about the only player to try inject any sort of pace into the game.

I was not impressed one bit. This fancy dancy tippy toe football is fucking boring. I wasn't Moyes's biggest fan but we always looked solid as a team; against Betis, we looked shit.

Also good to get a bit of an insight into the Press Box. Sounds like TW is going up in the world! Pleased to hear the club are trying to connect with the fans more. Alan Myers seems to have the right idea.

As we all agree, for this system to work we need a different type of central midfielder. Unless Heitinga makes the position his own, which is possible. It's going to be a season of transition. I can't say that too many times. I am confident Martinez will get it right in the long run.

Martinez will be thinking he's jumped from the frying pan into the fire, at Wigan he had to try to do well on a shoestring, and low and behold hes being being asked to do the same again!

If we don't get 2 or 3 top class footballers, it looks like we would be better reverting back to more direct play.

Opposition managers only have to push their centre-forward and two wide midfielders right up and abracadabra – you're fucked!

As the clock ticks towards Saturday at Norwich (who have not held back in bolstering their team) we will be lucky to get a result, unless we are holding back something! What is that 'something' because I fail to see it?

We need the Fellaini situation to be sorted quickly. The likes of Barkley and Naismith need to step up if they want to be part of the starting eleven. I thought Naismith had a good outing against Madrid but consistency is the key. Heitinga is not getting any better and tends to be erratic.

After giving it more thought I'm even more worried as I watched Liverpool vs Celtic and even though Liverpool lost, their speed of passing in midfield more than compensated for their also lack of a pacey midfielder. Our passing was slow, sideways, backwards and sloppy.

With Distin and Jags pulling out wide to give Howard options to throw it to them, all it needed was for a midfielder to lose the ball and hey presto we were cut wide open in a flash – we will get a real tonking if we continue to play like that.

All the talk of tiredeness, jet lag etc is of little consequence when the Real Betis team had actually played 90 mins on Saturday afternoon at Hull, where they lost 3-0.

I wonder when the rest of the fans will wake up?

When I work on my kids' speech I get them to say things slowly and over-exaggeratedly (if that's a word). I don't expect them to speak that way.

Hopefully the robotic stuff... CBs in the fullback position every time Howard gets it and CM dropping to CB is just an exaggeration of how he wants them to think. Because its pretty mindless if we just do that every time.

That, and the fact that the squad that finished 6th is (currently) stronger than last season, is the positive view. The other view is that we are either:

A) Experimenting too close to the real stuff; or
B) Actually going to commit hari kari and play like that.

Martinez's recent history does bother me.

With three weeks still to go of the transfer window nothing is really settled. It is still nail biting time. We go to Carrow Road nervously I think.

Why not just leave the back 4 to do their stuff and just get shut when being closed down, then, when we get the chance further up the pitch to pass & move more, encourage that for now. School of Science wasn't built in a day.

I guess Leroy Fer will be wearing the wrong shirt on Saturday.

Many things would have been different if we'd signed him in January IMO.

Barkley and indeed Pienaar were largely starved of the ball because the delivery was slow, inaccurate or not in their direction at all because it went backwards! There was a point when it looked like attack against defence – regardless of Betis getting a touch of the thing or not.

The link between the deeper two midfield players and those further forward looks very wrong at present and watching us made football look like a very difficult game to play at times. When the play is linked obviously it gets very messy and mistakes happen. Sort this out (somehow) and I think those further forward will give a far better account of themselves.

Weather we have wasted our money on Kone or not will depend on Jelevic's form. Norwich signed Fer and Redmond for not much more than we paid for Kone.

I also get the feeling we've invested in the wrong area of our squad. Time will only tell I suppose.

Still, a little while longer to go in this transfer window, a lot can change.

It's all silly nonesense disecting pre-season performances and using them as a stick to beat the manager with. Let's wait untill real time kick off happens then have a go if it not up to scratch. At least when I used to moan about Moyes, there was a reason for it. This is ridiculous.

The new system is highlighting the inadequacies of players who were brought in by a different manager to do a different job. Instead of getting the best out of these lads, Roberto is getting quite the opposite. Decent footballers like Osman, Gibson and Jags are looking completely lost and are definitely not happy.

As Tony Doran suggested earlier, in our own half we need to play in our old manner, strengthen the midfield and pass and move quickly in the final third.

Will Martinez continue to force square pegs into round holes or will he change tack? We'll have to wait and see. He's not a stupid man and will hopefully make all the right decisions at the right time.

Fact is, if that £6/7M turns out to be the sum total of our summer expenditure, Sr Roberto will have blown it all on his love children.

But all managers do it. Their peripheral view of the transfer market goes no further than players they know or those that get foisted on them by their fellow countrymen.

I don`t think that Martinez had ever done enough to merit his becoming our manager and from what I`ve seen of his tippy-tappy football, he is about to destroy all Moyes put together in his 11 years. And I was one of the MOB!

Do you remember how it pissed us off when we were told ... "Be careful what you wish for"? I`ve started wishing already!

Even if we lose a few or ship goals, we need to give Martinez a chance to get the right players in to play the way he wants. By Christmas we'll have a much better idea of how far away we are from where we could potentially be.

We've played really difficult pre-season games against teams who work really hard and who have really good technical players. Even though the premier league is 100mph, I think its a step down in quality from our pre-season opponents most of the time.

Importantly, Jelavic appears to have re-found his goalscoring form, and we have a fair bit more depth to the squad with Martinez willing to use the promising Barkley, Oviedo and his 4 new signings.

I think your right there. The problem I have is that Jelavic and Kone do not strike me as 12 million pounds worth of talent. We could have bought Tevez for that amount!

What's done is done though and here's hoping one of them can hit some form as we haven't had a goalscoring striker since the Yak.

Central midfield worries me most and is paper thin. Gibson divides opinion on here but few would argue he's a player we don't have a replacement for. Barkley is kid and can't really be counted on too much just yet. Osman is in woeful form. That doesn't really leave you a lot of options. Will be very interesting to see how Fer does. We also missed a cracking player in Capoue he is gonna be immense for Spurs.

I wouldn't profess to be a tactical genius but that makes some sense to me.

Check out Spurs' midfield options asuming that the Capoue transfer goes thru tomorrow:

Huddlestone, Bale, Holtby, Andros Townsend, Lennon, Dembele, Parker, Sigurdsson, Sandro, Paulinho, Livermore, Capoue

And our midfield: Osman, Gibson (injured), Barkley (19), Fellaini (probably off this week), Naismith.... oh yeah Heitinga...

Money sadly talks......

As for our midfield. Scary stuff indeed.

Everton's midfield so far for the coming season is actually: Gibson, Pienaar, Deulofeu, Osman, Barkley, Mirallas, Fellaini, Naismith, Junior. Not that bad really and take into consideration the Spurs squad will have to compete in the energy-sapping soul-destroying Europa League as well as the domestic competitions.

It's not all gloom and doom son.

I just wanted to point out how poor we are compared with Spurs who to be frank were on the same level as us 3 years ago...

Decent - but obviously not good enough or not adaptable enough to play a 'new' system.
They better start learning otherwise they are certainly going to show their inadequacies and we shall be waving them goodbye as soon as RM identifies their replacements.