Martinez: I'll never be afraid of making the right decision

He needed to add a more attacking element in central midfield and it was a very effective substitution. I haven’t always agreed with his subs – leaving Mirallas on the bench for 85 minutes was lunacy, for example – but that one was spot on.

yes but YOU seem to be the weakest link in that regard Roberto.

Goodison OT, Emirates across the road are all venues which can be fantastic when the crowds is onside; horrible places to play when they arenÂ’t ; all of those supporters demand a certain standard of play and player and it is what separates those clubs from the Spurs/ChelseaÂ’s and Manchester CityÂ’s - over 100 years of top flight football breeds a certain type of supporter if Roberto believes that the club needs to learn how to win perhaps he has a point but it would serve him a little better if he learnt about how the fans see the game and what they want to see out on the pitch.

BTW Roberto we have witnessed a meagre three league wins at Goodison Park this season is that really something that gives you the right to criticise the mentality of the club and its fans or is it perhaps due to your lack of flexibility for the good of the CLUB not just the team.

DonÂ’t try and teach a City that lives and breathes football how to react or how to support their club. That will only end badly for you, Roberto. Try and embrace the supporters as a mass rather than giving them pointless sound-bites.

That last paragraph of yours. Email it to him and he may just get it.

Superb my friend.

The Gibson sub was a good one, as Lyndon has said the need for more penetration from central midfield was there even last season but with the failure of the system to get the best out of the full backs and wide players this season its needed more than ever. The subs that got most fans riled this season were the ones were Besic and Mirallas were coming off and Barry was being left on for his fourth 90 minute in 10 days.

Another bit of logic for Martinez. Instead of throwing a hissy fit because the fans are on your back maybe try winning a few games first and they might magically lighten up on the team a bit. The fans at Everton don’t need to ’understand’ anything. We have seen every manner of team from league champions to relegation contenders. ’you need to know how to get through games, get positive results, help the players and then, after the game, understand the demands of being in a winning team." No Roberto, YOU need to know these things because you’re doing a great job of ignoring the last point particularly.

Ferguson, Jose even Moyes would keep all this stuff firmly behind closed doors and would give a steely eyed response to any hint of being questioned about their judgement. The tactics of the team should never be a topic for public debate between the manager and the fans. He sounds increasingly like heÂ’s losing the plot.

Swapping a keeper with 3 clean sheets with one who was struggling before his injury. Right decision.

Bringing on a defender when we’re losing/drawing against a side we should beat. Right decision.

Lemme know when he gets a wrong one.

What seemed so easy for large parts of last season, is proving to be a minefield this one. Age, injuries, Europe, and the many other reasons, that have been discussed at length on TW, have made this season a nightmare.

RM has to be judged on how well he has adapted to the present situation. Thus far he has failed miserably! He has stubbornly refused to see any fault in his football philosphy. If the way the team has performed week in, week out, is the players fault because they haven’t been able to play to a level RM requires, if the squad lacks the players needed to make his style of play successful, then in the end, the "blame" rest squarely with the manager.

Surely, at the Premier League level, a manager must have the knowledge and wisdom to change things up when the method of play just isn’t working.

As I said, the team is RM’s....until the time, one way or another, sooner or later....it isn’t.

Man management, player ratings, motivation, tactics, pragmatism, transfer values, contract renewals, adaptability, intelligent communication, discipline, physical fitness, team togetherness...I’ve never seen it so bad and ruined so quickly.

He’s torturing our fan base and destroying our club!

That is how disillusion he has become.

There are Games in which we don’t even take shots. That he fails to bee how tactically inept we are beggars brief.

Why were we anxious back then, Roberto?
Beacuse at 3 - 0 up with minutes to go we had a free kick in a promising position ... with ended up at our goalkeepers feet after 3 backpasses!!
That wasnÂ’t us being anxious, that was us not remembering having seen anything as negative as that from an Everton team at Goodion since David MoyesÂ’ negavtive substitution v Spurs which ended with us losing a game - and he got told too!

The deluded idiot needs to start getting results right, NOW and not at the end of the season!!! 3 wins at home this season is not good enough!! The guy needs to admit this season is a shambles down to his management. I don’t think we will get relegated because there are teams that are worse than us but this guy needs to go end of the season regardless of the Europa League form. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!!!

Mr Martinez is trying to run, he has yet to learn how to crawl.

I believe Martinez will probably make a good manager somewhere. Probably on the continent somewhere. But not at Everton. I think this season has now done irreparable damage that may only be overlooked by winning the Europa league and that dream will probably be put to bed when we meet RS in the next round.

I don’t think we will get relegated. Is any one actually prepared to say we will?

If we win 3 of them we’re all but secure, if we lose 3 we’ll be in big trouble.

Who knows, but anyone who is convinced we will, would be a fool not to take the 66/1 on offer.

If you’re convinced we’ll be relegated, your choice is absolutely gutted or absolutely gutted but with (for 200 nicker) 㾹,200 I your bin.

Blindly saying this or that decision is ’ right in my eyes’ is the uttering of a fool and means absolutely nothing. As is being proved by this season’s results !

Eugene – if anyone does put money on, for a variety of reasons I hope they have a ’Devon Loch’ moment (for those who have never seen it, look it up on youtube – I had an uncle who was into horseracing and he mentioned that horse from time to time)

Ray – you would be pretty brave to say on ToffeeWeb that you think we will be relegated, but I will wait to see if anyone does. I suppose a ToffeeWeb poll would be interesting. Some might be prepared to answer in the affirmative when it is anonymous. There would then be a scrum to find out who said it. Does anyone remember that old cartoon? A manager is sitting in an office with one of his team members. The manager is saying: “Now I would just like to run through some of the comments you made on the anonymous staff survey.”

More ignorance and arrogance from Martinez, he really does believe this nonsense doesn’t he?

There are none so blind as those who will not see.

When I used the words, "I think", it was in a context of others suggesting that, ’we could be in trouble’, whilst not being prepared to say that, in their view, we would be relegated.

"I think", here just means, "in my opinion." To be clear, I am absolutely sure: we won't be relegated.

Do you "think" we will?

He’d win more respect and support if he just faced up to his mistakes rather than blaming everything but himself.

He picks the team, the tactics and if you go on such a poor run as we have with the same old mistakes being made, the manager must be held responsible.

These ridiculous soundbites just portrays him as a narcissistic, egotistical, delusional who probably knows that he is clinging to his job.

He’s definitely feeling the pressure and this last ditch defence of his decisions with hastily backtracked soundbites just makes him look even more clueless.

We WILL get relegated......

It means nothing though, as itÂ’s pure speculation.

We keep hearing that there are 3 worse teams than us.....are there?

Hopefully there is, as I used to laugh at posters mentioning relegation but now I am having a Sir Alex squeaky bum time.

Even Moyes changed his tactics when we were having a bad time of it, this scheister refuses to believe he is doing anything wrong, exactly like the quotes I posted at the start of the week when he was in the process of taking Wigan down.

itÂ’s strange, as I never really went to the dark side with our former manager but now I am feeling a disturbance in the force with this one, as he steadfastly refuses to accept that we are in trouble.

Then again, we were never in such a dire position with Moyes, even the year we finished 17th, we had enough points to survive with 5/6 games to go.

We are used to constantly criticising the players/manager for bottling it when trying for the Champions League spots, now were are cacking our kecks worrying about the spectre of relegation.

Worrying times ahead for Senor Bobby, who is never wrong!!!

Everton fans are loyal and knowledgeable. You aren’t at Wigan any more. Your own performance doesn’t merit these self-regarding comments.

Seeing the positive in everything isn’t positive.

Regards
Paul

After listening to his latest ramblings Garbutt should pack his bags and jump on the first train out of Lime Street. 3rd choice left back with a manager who prefers players with Premier League experience is not a good place to be. Form or ability don’t matter. It put Robles back on the bench, causes Besic to be pulled off, limits the appearances of Atsu and wipes out the promotion of youngsters.

Our inability to get tight and close down crosses and shots is the result of poor coaching. Players not getting into the box and fullbacks refusing to cross the ball is the result of poor coaching. The whole thing is a shambles. Martinez is out of his depth and should be kicked out pronto.

For what it’s worth, my gut tells me that the ultimate victims of relegation will come from QPR, Villa, Burnley and Leicester. But, as TWers told me all last season, what the feck do I know !

More seriously, I am concerned. Of course we are all experts on substitutions etc., but in most cases we rarely have the full picture (e.g. players are carrying a knock and need to come off; some of those on the bench aren’t fully fit – I can only assume Kone’s knee is rank or he would have appeared against Leicester).

My main worry about our manager – and my concerns have been growing for some weeks now – is the evident lack of attention to some obvious basics:

· Do we ever practise free kicks and corners (both when attacking and defending)?
· Do we play to people’s strengths or do we slavishly follow a formula unsuited to their capabilities? (Lukaku is not at his best with his back to goal; is Ross at his best on the wing?)
· Do individuals practise basic skills in training and try to address obvious weaknesses, the mastery of which would improve their overall performance markedly (e.g. Lukaku and his inability to control a large percentage of balls pinged at him at speed)?

When the manager constantly praises our play and our players, irrespective of performance, what happens is that people stop listening. You lose the dressing room. Now I don’t have the full facts, but some of the information leaks from players in the last few months might lead you to think that players are beginning to lose confidence in their gaffer. I hope we never reach a point at which the team succeeds in spite of him, and not because of him.

We unfortunately are not and have some really tough games between now and the end of the season.

Worry is second nature to me now and I AM worried for us at the moment.

The bottom line is the guy got us our record premier league points last season and shocked the league. In old money it was our best performance since HarveyÂ’s first season as we fell from the top. As a contrast to the season we got fourth under moves, with negative goal difference, and a patronising pat on the back from the media, we did it in style. No longer last on the match of the day. We beat some big teams by playing them off the park.

WhatÂ’s Roberto done wrong this season, really, think about it, what is so wrong? We are lower mid table, itÂ’s not good, but itÂ’s not, contrary to the doom-mongers on here, the end of the world. As long as we go far (semis) in Europe and stay up, IÂ’ll be happy. In fact heÂ’d only be the second manager to ever get us past the quarter finals of any European competition, should we win in the next round.

Martinez plays a certain way. Accept it. You canÂ’t hire pullis and expect him to play like Barcelona. You canÂ’t hire Martinez and expect motes style pragmatism. ItÂ’s not happening.

Some of you seem to be advocating a return to 442. You want width and all this other outdated stuff from the 80s. ThereÂ’s a reason itÂ’s in the history bin. It no longer works. 442 is dead, someone like mourinho can pick a 442 team apart with lower league standard players. ItÂ’s a flawed system. Width is also outdated. Wingers hugging the touch line are two less players to close and chase in the middle. Width has to come from your fullbacks. The best widemen these days play in the channels, like hazard, and float around.

When Martinez says basic and McCarthy are playing the same position, itÂ’s because he put them there. This is called the double pivot. ItÂ’s best explained by having a player like Barry who just sits in front of the back four with an anchor dropped on him and no licence to get forward. In a double pivot he also covers the left back when he runs forwards. The right side of the double pivot is the playmaking midfielder. Mccarthy isnÂ’t quite Xavi Alonso, or my personal favourite in this position, seba veron, but he offers more dynamism and drive. He gets the ball moving and rarely gives it away or puts a teammate in trouble.

For me the big problem this season has been our two deep midfielders. Barry has been poor. HeÂ’s not been the shield he was last season, and heÂ’s not moving the ball quickly enough to his partner. Mccarthy has not been the same due to injuries, but he was playing excellent earlier in the season. Basic has become a cult figure on the back of some showy tackles and not much else. He lacks the discipline to play the Barry role. He is better suited to the McCarthy role, but needs to find consistency. Someone should look in to how many games we have won with and without Besic. I bet most of you would be shocked. For me itÂ’s not a coincidence.

The absolute priority for me right now is a new Barry. We need to get a shield in front of the defence and get Coleman running forward. Baines might be best from a spell on the sidelines, which makes it a big shame that Oviedo was injured just when he was starting to come through.

Ahead of the defensive duo in midfield we have also had problems. Naismith was excellent early I the season, then lost form, and now seems to be coming back into some form. Barkley is suffering from loss of form and appears to be able to handle criticism from the stands. He seems to be a confidence player. We need more from the number 10. The players wide of him have also struggled. McGeady is just not good enough for me. Hes a show pony with little end product. He also hugs the touch line too much and completely blocks Coleman off, thereby limiting the amount of players attacking. IÂ’d rather see Mirallas here, cutting inside and playing far more centrally, taking defenders with him, and creating the space for Coleman to drive into. On the left, the loss of Pienaar has been immense. I know heÂ’s still there, but I doubt heÂ’ll ever be what he was, and Barnes has suffered as a result. Pienaar was the master of operating in that left hand channel and creating that space for Baines to exploit. This is the width weÂ’ve been badly missing. The fullbacks just have not got forward like last season.

Modern football is all about transitions. Listen to the likes of Bielsa and Mourinho and they explain how you need to play. The talk is of counter-counter attacking football. When the likes of Everton are faffing around with the ball at the back, this is when they will go most on the attack. They try to Harry and chase to get the ball to then be immediately on at goal. Everton have really struggled in the transitions this season. If you watch Barcelona, like they were against Man City, youÂ’ll see how they are also good on the transitions despite playing the way we want to play. BarcelonaÂ’s style appears to contrast to that of a Bielsa side, Bielsa is far more direct, but Guardiola is a student of Bielsa, famously spending time with him in his home in Argentina, immediately prior to accepting the barcelona job. Watch Barcelona and now Munich and youÂ’ll see the Bielsa influence in the way they win the ball back and then how fast they transition from defence into attack. They win the ball and then they move it quickly. Two, three or four one touch short passes in a few seconds, after wining the ball to launch an attack.

What Everton are doing this season, is they are awful on the transition. They donÂ’t hit one touch passes. They take three or four touches and then hit an easy pass sideways or backwards. Now thereÂ’s nothing wrong with hitting it sideways or backwards like this, Barcelona and Munich do do this. The problem is the speed. Everton are taking too many touches, hitting the ball too slowly, and wasting too much time, losing the impetus, so the move in fact looks over just a few seconds after we just won the ball.

We saw late in the young boys game what Everton can do. There was an amazing move very late in the game when we hit 5 or 6 passes, all one touch, in all under 6 seconds. Each player hit it first time. They knew where each other was, they had looked before the ball came, they had supreme confidence from being so comfortably ahead, and they zipped the ball about.

This is what we need to do. This is what Martinez is coaching them. HeÂ’s not coaching them to play pedestrian football. He wants quick, fast, short passes. Although, he does coach them to keep the ball and have patience.

Another big change from last season is the opposition. A common phrase is to say, "we have been found out". Okay, yes we have, but what has been found out? Teams know that if they sit deep against Everton we will not go straight for them. They simply need to prevent a quick early pass, so some Minor pressure on the ball, but for everyone to then drop back and to sit very deep. We then struggle to break through and move the ball around cluelessly.

Last season, people were pressuring us, Barry was wining the ball and quickly hinting McCarthy, who then either moved the ball very quickly through the midfield to Barkley or wide hitting the charging fullbacks. Yes we did play the tippy tippy stuff, but a lot of the goals came from the quick transition. Moving the ball through midfield before the opponent could get back into shape and in particular, before anyone could cover the charging fullbacks. The opponents now cover the fullbacks and donÂ’t attack us like they did last season. They pressure the ball and sit deep. We do not move the ball quick enough when we first win it, take too many touches, and then hit a lazy ball across the back four.

This is what Roberto needs to work on. we need someone to win the ball and then move it quickly to a McCarthy or Besic who then hits it first time to Barkley or wide to get us moving quickly up the pitch.

Last summer ever banega, superb Argentinan playmaker who Moyes had got a work permit for, before he did a uturn and declined to move to us, was on a free transfer and went to Seville. HeÂ’d be an ideal player for us. Hes a lovely playmaker, the heart beat of the argentina side, and reminds me of arterta at his best. Defensively heÂ’s poor, despite playing very deep, but his passing is probably among the best in the world. HeÂ’d have been a steal and is still only 25 years of age. Hes not having a great season in Spain, but perhaps heÂ’s worth a gamble in the summer to sort out the problems we are having.

My point to this long ramble, things arenÂ’t working this year, but Roberto should be given some slack after his efforts of last season. The players are not doing their jobs like last season and the opponents are making things difficult for us. If Martinez is a decent manager he will adapt his tactics to get things working again soon. LetÂ’s just not go overboard and call for his head when heÂ’s a couple of wins from being our second best ever European manager. He earnt patience from us last season.

"If Martinez is a decent manager he will adapt his tactics to get things working again soon".

I have personaly been waiting all season for this adaptation.

You couldnÂ’t put a time scale on it for me could you mate?

It was fucking awful to watch at times, but we did squeeze every last point out of those sides. Now, can Martinez balance his style without compromising the performances on the pitch? I think he can, once we see a midfielder who can see a pass without taking three or four touches - look at Gibson against Leicester.

This is where your post is spot on, once the pace is lost from our attacks, we are lost as a team. If we could find a player or two to rectify that aspect of our play, and speed up our transitions, we could see huge improvements all over the pitch. We know Lukaku thrives from quick balls played in front of him, thatÂ’s what we should be concentrating on.

I think you confusing the Blues with Barca or Arsenal; the only difference being they are allowed to spend unlimited £millions on their players and even then the system isnÂ’t perfect so what chance has Roberto got of playing that way ? It worked last season because It was a Hybrid of Moyes old style plus Robertos new tactics, it was a one off.

This season the discipline Moyes instilled in the team is missing and were in free fall, Its all about money of course and we have to cut our cloth accordingly to survive and I for one can live with that rather than get relegated by trying to live out RobertoÂ’s dogmatic fantasy thatÂ’s why he has to go; it will just get worse not better.

An interesting read but as Trevor points out above you start by stating your shock at the criticism of MartinezÂ’s tactics - then go on to discuss at length all the problems that the manager has failed to solve!

"The players are not doing their jobs like last season and the opponents are making things difficult for us."

So what is the manager doing to rectify this?
In no other profession in the world would that statement be acceptable.

Now thatÂ’s why we wonÂ’t win anything anytime soon and why our manager is immune from the sack for as long as he maintains our Premier League status.

ThatÂ’s just a start.

However, in asking "WhatÂ’s Roberto done wrong this season, really, think about it, what is so wrong?" you then, in part, answer your own question.

Part of the frustration many feel this season is exactly because of how Roberto got the team playing last season, achieving the club’s best PL record since its formation.

It was a fair assumption, with pretty much the same personnel, that level of performance and results would continue into this season.

But it is self evident that there has been regression of both the team and individuals.

It is understood Martinez plays a certain way. But you canÂ’t just say blandly "accept it" as you do Steve when it fails to entertain or produce the results as it has throughout this season.

I agree with you that calls for a return to 442 is, by and large, outdated. I also agree with you that these days width comes from your fullbacks. And for years under Moyes and last year under Roberto, we had the best two in the business. But under Martinez this season they have been completely negated.

Similarly, the double pivot you refer to which was so effective last season is also less effective this. And whilst I can see a player with promise in Besic, again, I agree with you – cult figure that he is becoming – he is far from the finished product.

You are absolutely on the money, that modern football is all about transitions with an emphasis on counter attacking football. We did this very effectively last season, but awfully this season. And this is where Roberto is a step behind the great coaches and teams you mention.

Barcelona no longer play the tiki-taka football they did under Guardiola. They and Real, for example, are MUCH more rapid and rapier like in getting the ball into scoring areas then they were previously. At the moment, we are the very antithesis of that.

We showed it many times last season and - yes - even when down to 10 men in Berne last week as you mention, we showed flashes of such incisiveness (which shows we DO have the players capable of the system), but that has been as rare as henÂ’s teeth this season.

You acknowledge this and list why "we have been found out" (although you seemingly question this ...). But the issues you identify Steve ... it isnÂ’t news! ItÂ’s what many have commented on and been concerned with all season.

So you have to ask, if many lay folk and armchair critics can see it, why canÂ’t the manager and why hasnÂ’t he addressed it, within THIS season? You yourself say "If Martinez is a decent manager he will adapt his tactics to get things working again soon."

HeÂ’s had three-quarters of the season - and we are still waiting for him to adapt his tactics to get things working again.

As for your hypothetical - that heÂ’s a couple of wins from being our second best ever European manager - he is still some way off that. The league table and our results and performances are not hypothetical. They are very, very real. And very, very stark.

What a prospect. And yet, if we donÂ’t do well this season the big clubs will without doubt start taking them off our hands. Of course we should be playing Robles, because heÂ’s already a better keeper, and to get experience, with which he seems to grow with every match he plays. Of course we should keep and play Garbutt, at least in some matches, because heÂ’s good, and heÂ’s our future.

But above all, as everyone is only too aware, we should be playing better, much much better, than we are at the moment. And IÂ’m afraid the man who took Wigan down, despite all his good qualities and good intentions, is showing us that he is just not up to the job. And IÂ’m concerned that the consequences of underachievement this season could reach much further than one season. They could sabotage the very exciting new era we all thought we were on the brink of at the beginning of this season.

Roberto, please, please prove me wrong.

I donÂ’t think we will be relegated because there are teams under us who are worse than we are! I actually canÂ’t imagine how any team can be worse than us after some of the piss poor displays this season, both home and away but I guess there are a couple.

Like many of us I was sitting at Goodison last weekend freezing my arse off watching the Leicester game; I canÂ’t remember in all the time IÂ’ve watched football seeing a home team slowly get worse as the first half came to a close - the away team werenÂ’t even pressing, wtf!

RM is becoming the worst manager IÂ’ve ever come across and a complete embarrassment to the club. ItÂ’s a complete fucking joke now and IÂ’m at a loss on how heÂ’s getting away with it all!

I hope he makes the right decision quickly!

Ps, He could sell snow to Alaska. His must be watching another team. Whatever management course he went on never mentioned open your bloody eyes and smell the coffee!

It is worth noting that this manager when he got Wigan relegated openly stated that he did not think he was able to bring them back up
So now we have a manager who did not think he was good enough to stand by a team he got relegated into the championship doing his best for us to join them.

Where are the new versions of Pienaar, Osman, Mirallas, and centerbacks? RM’s fault besides the quality of the players brought in seems to be the inability or arrogance of not adapting to the players’s strengths he does have and the opposing tactics. Can anyone really fault LVG or Big Sam when at times they play long ball to get past defenses and to use their perceived strongest players?

If RM has the talent to be a manager of quality then it is arrogance that is putting Everton where they are now in the table and that is a fault of the manager, but one he had at Wigan too. I love that he is an optimist but at some point optimism in the face of actual results becomes delusional.

He is approaching his third off-season so we will have to see what players he brings in to implement his system or if he even can given the team finances. Maybe he should bow to the fans’ wishes and play their favorites and see how quickly we plummet to the bottom of the table just to show them he does know what he is talking about. So start Robles (despite the overall stats which show Howard is the better keeper), Coleman, Stones, Garbutt, and Alcaraz?? (Fans don’t like Jags or Distin based on the comments on this site), Besic, McCarthy, Lennon, Naismith, Atsu, and Kone.

But I'm not sure this quote quite deserves the response it's got on here.

He's saying that he sees more than we do. Day in day out. Including whether players are carrying knocks. So he's right to say that he will make the call even if it's going to be popular. The day he stops doing that he should quit.

I would challenge much of the reasoning behind his selections/subs but it's actually quite good to hear him stick to his guns for a change.

You would be hard pressed to find a more exciting pair of full backs – anywhere in the world – than those inherited by Martinez from Moyes.

He also inherited England’s center-half and the best young ball playing defender seen in a long long time.

Martinez this season has what Tony Soprano would describe as "the Midas touch in reverse" – Everything he has touched as turned to shit.