Martinez will focus his search for a “№ 10” overseas

It would appear heÂ’s looking for a Silva/Fabregas type creative player but where does that leave Ross? He obviously doesnÂ’t consider him for that role.

A total waste of time and money!

I have read the Liverpool Echo article and MartinezÂ’s points do make sense. I will add that if you are going to have a creative player it helps if the forwards are moving around a bit rather than standing fairly still. WhatÂ’s this Chris Long like up front?

The fact that we are finding players who can make it in lower divisions suggests to me that we are not far wrong. There is a lot to kick holes in at our club but not every single thing is shite.

Martinez has spent £54 million on players and none of them could see a pass if their lives depended upon it.

HeÂ’ll buy another tackling machine... and play him behind the striker.

No, he’d rather ’bring on’ his mate Mourinho’s kids – and then sign them for £28M – than give our kids a chance. Not that he’s alone in that, granted.

Or have I got the wrong end of El stick?!

How about a bid for Diego or Van der Vaart on a free? Both admittedly the wrong side of 30 but at least affordable.

Martinez reckons he needs to look abroad for a No 10, fuck that try Baines in there. I’d rather see him there than as a deep lying midfielder.

Once he builds his stamina and hones his decision making and shooting skills, Barkley would be a cracking attacking centre-mid like Ballack or Lampard. To try an make him a creative, jinking slick-fleet footed "10" like Messi, Silva, Brahimi even Coutinho is just not going to work.

IÂ’d really love to see us sign a player in the Ossie (but better) mold, someone who can see and disguise a forward pass and can create a bit of space in tight situations to feed Lukaku, then we can really see what he is made of in front of goal!

Where would Ross fit in if we did buy a Number 10? He canÂ’t play out wide, he doesnÂ’t have the pace, he canÂ’t play up front because Roberto mostly plays one up front, and he canÂ’t fill a midfield berth because McCarthy and Barry are always chosen when fit.

IÂ’m a cynical old sod and this smells to me like Man City or whomever have taken a punt on Barkley and that is why we are suddenly trying to find a Â’creativeÂ’ Number 10, it may also explain Ross BarkleyÂ’s lack of form for most if not all of this calender year.

"There is no doubt in my mind that he will be the best player England has ever had," Martinez boldly proclaimed. "Ross has everything. Normally a player has the pace and power to get around the pitch or they have the vision to pick a pass. Ross can do both of those things — not only that he is in love with the game."

Robert Martinez May 2015:

"You are not just looking for the technical ability because it is clear what you are looking for: someone who has got good appreciation of where to receive the ball, someone who knows how to weight a pass and can give good service to the forwards."

The guy talks contrary drivel week after week. If the fans can see this so will the players. What sort of affect will that have on their respect for the manager?

I have looked up the players who are in the top 10 for assists in each of the Spanish, Italian, German and French leagues (as per ESPN). I then filtered the list I had to only include midfield players valued at under £15m (as per transfermarkt) and aged 28 and under. I ended up with the following list of players.

Who would you prefer? And do any of you know any of these players? Because my list is purely based off statistics and I have seen little if anything of most of these players. Enjoy or get annoyed and call me all the FM insults under the sun...

Format is: Name; Club; Assists; Value; Age; Position

Dimitri Payet; Marseille; 16; £10.56M; 28; AM

Payet is a French international with 13 French caps, he joined Marseille for a reported €11M in the summer of 2013. He has 14 goals and 16 assists in 60 games for Marseille with 18 goals 25 assists in 71 for Lille and 19 and 17 in 129 for St. Etienne, so that implies good pedigree. He is known as quick with terrific technique and dribbling skills. Seems more like a winger than a number 10 but good stats.

Nolito; Celta Vigo; 11; £5.28M; 28; LW

Nolito is someone most blues know from his good showing against us in the pre season friendly. He seems to me like a strong target and would be a perfect replacement for Pienaar in my eyes. I think he is almost certainly on Roberto’s wishlist and is the reason I chose the pretty arbitrary 28 as my maximum age when filtering. Anyway, Nolito is a Spanish player who operates in the LW/FW position, he joined Barca B at the ripe old age of 22 and stayed at Barca for 3 years making 2 senior appearances before rejecting their offer of a new contract and joining Benfica, he is now back in Spain with Celta Vigo. His stats are pretty good, wiki only gives me his goals but he has 92 goals in 326 appearances overall, a good all round attacking player available reasonably cheaply I would imagine.

Yannick Ferreira-Carrasco; AS Monaco; 10; £6.6M; 21; LW

Carrasco is a 1 cap Belgium international, at only 21 he alreadyhas 78 apps for Monaco. He seems to be a winger again. Not much else to be gained from his wiki but young with decent experience and possibly available quite cheap due to Monaco’s financial troubles. As with Payet though doesn’t seem to be a No10 per se.
My laptop is about to die so I will add a bit more beef from wiki on the rest of this list later but I have included their names for now:

Zlatko Junuzovic; Werder Bremen; 10; £6.16M; 27; LM

Denis Cheryshev; Villarreal; 9; £8.8M; 24; LW

Franco Vazquez; Palermo; 9; £6.6M; 26; AM

Nabil Fekir; Lyon; 9; £5.72M; 21; AM

Domenico Berardi; Sassuolo; 8; £13.2M; 20; RW

Romain Hamouma; St Etienne; 8; £5.7M; 28; RW

Jonathan Schmid; SC Freiburg; 8; £3.96M; 24; RW

Diego; Stade de Reims; 8; £1.76M; 27; LW

Felipe Anderson; Lazio; 7; £13.2M; 22; LW

Gonzalo Castro; Bayer Leverkusen; 7; £12.32M; 27; CM

Thorgan Hazard; Borussia Monchengladbach; 7; £8.8M; 22; AM

Anthony Mounier; Montpellier; 7; £3.52M; 27; LW

Osman looks very good at times in the No 10 role but heÂ’s really inconsistent. I agree with John Malone on getting an Ossie-like upgrade for the No 10.

Seeing is believing where Roberto is concerned. LetÂ’s see if he comes up with the goods. After him heaping great expectations on Ross and ruining the lads confidence, god knows what superlatives a new No 10 would be burdened with.

Cue transfer deadline day when he will say the club tried to do all they could but they couldnÂ’t do a deal or it wasnÂ’t right for the club. IÂ’d rather people at the club just shut their gobs for once and just deliver, give the fans a surprise in a nicer way.

You are a joker. The academy is the only thing which has kept the club afloat the last 10 years! Rooney saved us from going out of business. Since then, every time we have flogged an Anichebe, or a Rodwell, or a Vaughan etc, it has created vital funds that we wouldnÂ’t have been able to generate otherwise.

We have had first team players like Ossie and Hibbert, who must have played 400 games between them. Even now, we could sell Barkley for £20 million plus. How you can say it has been a total waste of money is beyond me. it’s the only part of the club which has been successful!

As far as the Under-21s are concerned, I was really looking forward to seeing the kids against Krasnadar at home and all we got was same old, same old due to poor tactics. At times, El Bobby can talk a good game but, certainly this season, rarely produces a good game. As the saying goes, practise what you preach, Bobby.

First, it’s all about the English players not having the right technical ability, but then he goes on to say that it’s easy to find players with the right technical ability but they need to have a British mentality – which one is it?

Secondly, it completely contradicts all the rubbish that has flowed out from him about Barkley being a natural Number 10, Naismith being both a natural Number 9 and a natural Number 10. It was obviously a load of rubbish as every idiot has been able to see this season that neither can play that role against tight defenses.

I am glad heÂ’s looking for creativity but what bothers me is I believe Martinez just sees the game as dominating possession, getting the opposition to retreat into their area, then hope a bit of skill or a wonder goal will get the breakthrough.

He should be looking for creativity from deep-lying midfield – not just Number 10. The Fabregas, Arteta type of player who can pick the ball up off the defense and play the incisive ball forward to get a winger one on one or a striker through on goal.

Last weekend Cleverley lost his man with a fine piece of acceleration and scored a real Lampard type goal to win the game. His awareness and movement is something our squad does not possess and people who knock him wouldnÂ’t know a footballer from a toadstool.

IÂ’m sure itÂ’s no coincidence that this came out on the same day as the Â’Blue Seat DayÂ’ texts were issued. No subtlety in the clubÂ’s PR, what a surprise!

Hull, Sunderland, Stoke amongst others have all shown qualities that we havenÂ’t this season but that doesnÂ’t mean that we should be raiding their players either. If Cleverley is that good then why hasnÂ’t he been doing it for Villa all season? But then again, I obviously donÂ’t know a footballer from a toadstool.

All we really need is a Â’realÂ’ playmaker to provide the ammunition for Barkley, Mirallas and Lukaku. Unfortunately both Pienaar and Osman are at the end of their careers and can only be used as subs.

https://youtu.be/kbhPf0mKV8M

As for the number 10 quoted by Martinez, I didnÂ’t think we could afford one of them?

I agree with many previous posts, we canÂ’t add another youngster and give him time to develop, whoever he is has to come in, play every game and be a success.

I’d offer £20 million for Rooney.

IÂ’d have thought he was an intelligent man if heÂ’d spoken less.

My point was that, even if some of the kids can play they are never given a chance, are they? The AcademyÂ’s main function these days is to provide employment for old players as coaches rather than budding stars. The whole scene is a farce.

Ross, at times, does not seem to know what to do when facing a massed defence, albeit with little movement to help him. He can, however, ping a pass with pace and precision and by playing deeper he will have more time and space to see runs and passes.

His other quality is in the counter attack, linking to the striker or scoring himself. We should develop that into a tactical advantage as Moyes occasionally did with players like Tommy Gravesen. He never always used to pack the box with 11 players, but Tommy would stand on the touchline and if we could we would clear to him then we had the other team on the back foot. I donÂ’t recall that lasting too long though!

Ross needs to improve though, and I believe he would do this more effectively by concentrating on developing as a deeper midfielder, rather than something he is not (ie Hazard).

But I was impressed the the Aston Villa player, Grealish. I think he is only 19 but shows greater calmness on the ball than Ross Barkley, a good eye for the pass, and moves in to space well. Apparently heÂ’s not made up his mind whether to bee available for Ireland or England so he could be, er, from overseas.

Probably too young, though for the player RM is thinking about!

I too would like to see us sign Payet or Ever Banega (Seville). Banega maybe not a typical No 10 but could do a job there.

It shall be interesting to see who he releases (possibly Pienaar, Osman, Naismith, Kone, McGeady...)

So where does that leave Barkley, who has disappointed this season? Remains to be seen.

IÂ’m not expecting much in the transfer window. Potential recruits will take one look at a few videos of our Â’styleÂ’ his season under RM, and probably run a mile in the opposite direction. Our Â’phenomenalÂ’ manager has, I fear turned signing for Everton into the equivalent of accepting a poisoned chalice. I know, I know, doom and gloom, but tell me just what has Martinez done or said(!) to give us any real hope for optimism?

Ermm ... Clement Grenier or Nabil Fekir of Lyon? ... Â’CheekyÂ’ Fekir a potentially excellent shout at Goodison?

Before we waste millions on new players, money has to be spent sorting out our sticky grass. ItÂ’s still making me laugh.

His gravestone will read, "Here lies Roberto Martinez; Keep off the sticky grass."

My point, however, is if these players we are talking about become interested and then fully research us by watching the woeful dross we churned out on a week-to-week basis back home, they might just alter their opinion slightly.

Last Summer we probably would have been a lot more attractive to players as a team on the up.

You can read between the lines that heÂ’s wanting a player who can only walk with the ball and adapt quickly to snail's-pace pedestrian style, the way he likes it, thatÂ’s why he doesnÂ’t want a British player.

I really donÂ’t think I could put up with another season of possession at paint-drying pace!

A lot of our players this season have under-performed and people wonder why Roberto has come in for so much criticism, surely thatÂ’s his job, after all. Look at the difference Sherwood has made at Villa with the same set of players.

As our best creative players, Pienaar, Osman and Gibson are all either too old, or too injury prone, it is desperate that we get something to replace them.

I would be interested in what was available in the price range slightly above £15m as well, as it seems possible that we may lose one of our ’gems’ this summer for a Champions League class club and may have something in the kitty.

Going back to his point of developing this type of player at our Academy, of the current crop only Kieran Dowell appears to fit this mould. Our U18 players in particular are showing up well at their respective international levels, but primarily in the defensive midfield position (Ryan Ledson, Tom Davies) or attacking full back (Jonjoe Kenny, James Yates, Kenny is too small to be a PL centre half). So I donÂ’t see any specific signs of a No 10 being developed apart from Dowell.

Arguably Davies and particularly Ledson could be developed into a No 10, both have good passing ability but their current strengths are around strong tackling, game awareness and defensive positioning.

It will be interesting to see how this develops in our youngsters. The one thing that is clear to me reading some of the depressing financial type articles of late is that we will remain a second tier team if we rely on our finances. Our best hope of breaking into the top four is via our own youngsters or cheap players we develop playing a system used throughout the club and understood by all. IÂ’m prepared to give Roberto another year to see if he can move us in the right direction with his system.

ItÂ’s wishful thinking to suggest the best way of getting into that top four is with our youngsters, thereÂ’s not a cat in hells chance mate.

I have seen the young lads a few times, for whatever reason we only seems to want to develop lads who are defensive minded and sit deep, I can tell you now, thereÂ’s no hope of seeing any young attackers of ours playing next season in the first team.

All this talk of signing a number 10 but one crucial point is missing here, no matter how good a player or creative he may be, he will need movement around him, how can you expect him to create things when you have players like Barry, Lukaku around who simply arenÂ’t mobile enough?

We donÂ’t do pass-and-move football, itÂ’s just pass-and-stand-still-and-watch football, thatÂ’s the way itÂ’s been all season.

DonÂ’t forget, Roberto had a whole season of brilliance from his players before his motivational weaknesses began to show.

As it is, we, as fans appear to covet any player who runs rings round us but that is hardly a barometer of how good a player he is, as we are terrible. Unlike others who seem to think we played remarkably well throughout the EL this season, we actually had three good games: both the Young Boys games and Lille at home. Both Wolfsburg games we should have been destroyed had they had any decent finisher, so in my opinion I donÂ’t think the EL games really have enhanced our position as an attractive club for a foreign player to come here.

People forget that we do actually have quality players at the club but Martinez seems to have destroyed their appetite to play the game due to his poor tactics and poor match day preparation. Going into the new season, I can only see more of the same regardless of who we sign.

Sorry to all for being so negative but, unless the manager fucks off as far away as possible, then we may as well just keep the same players as far as possible and save the money for when Martinez fucks up once too often and luvvie Bill has to get rid and give the cash to a new manager who hopefully knows what he is doing.

ps Steve #82 yeah I agree with your assessment of Sherwood too

Roberto took over a team that had just finished 6th though and fitness-wise was still pretty much living off the dying embers of Moyes's notorious endurance training methods.

12 months on, it's like watching 11 geriatrics playing. It comes to something when even a fine physical specimen like Ross Barkley is puffing and blowing during the FIRST HALF of a match a few months ago.

Martinez has taken a team that was consistently a top 7/8 side and trademarked for its endurance, fitness and durability, and if nothing more, at least being hard to beat, and turned it into a side that looks like a bunch of disillusioned strangers.

Sherwood is full of arrogance and self-confidence sure, but he has taken a team destined for the abyss into a free scoring entertaining vibrant side thatÂ’s now in a Cup or too.
He also did a decent job at Spurs until the more glamour named Pochettino came along and has he really moved them on from last season???

The positives is that these boys are well coached in the system they are taught to play. This was evident last week watching Tom Davies, James Yates, Nathan Holland play for England U17s. All fitted into the England system well.

It may well be wishful thinking to see our youngsters as being our future, but I despair that our financial/ commercial side will never enable us to compete with the current top four. Occasionally weÂ’ll be ahead of RS and Spurs, then coming up weÂ’ll have WHU in a new stadium and eventually moneybags owners, maybe even Newcastle will get their shit together one day.

I do admit that my enthusiasm and interest in our youngsters increases indirect proportionally to how the first team are doing. Given the choice on TV on Saturday IÂ’d rather watch the U18s trying to win the U18 Premier League at Man City than the WHU game!

All those players you mention as being possibly released have contracts for next season, so wonÂ’t be going anywhere. So does Hibbert. Half of next seasonÂ’s squad are crocked or past it already.

The last player we had who was anywhere near that class was Arteta, another foreign player, who is past it nowadays as he is over shadowed by other Arsenal midfielders. Osman is still the best we have which is an indictment of our so called youth coaching policy. All we seem to produce are defenders. :(

If you watched Barcelona last night, which is obviously MartinezÂ’s blueprint for success, it was painfully obvious how you need exceptional players with great technique to play that system. If that style is ever going to work here he will need to get rid of most of the entire squad. I can count on 1 hand the players who could manage it here. Baines, Coleman, Stones, Pienaar. Possibly Besic.

The current Barcelona donÂ’t really have a no.10 anyway. Their fluid front 3 all take turns at drifting into that space. I like the new Barcelona a lot more than the Pep Barca. It would be interesting to see Martinez adopt a 4-1-2-3. We could manage it apart from the front 3!

That's it then.

For example: Howard; Coleman, Jagielka, Stones, Baines; Barry; McCarthy, Besic; Mirallas, Lukaku, Barkley. It might not work but it could be interesting.

Personally, I donÂ’t see how this is a contradiction to whether Barkley is a Number 10 or not. I think Ross will drive on from midfield in the way that Lampard and Gerrard do, like some have mentioned. So, there is no issue with a Number 10 who is a schemer and someone leading in assists, scoring his fair share of goals.

Even if Ross is Number 10, there is nothing wrong in strengthening that position, because we need results in the "here and now". We have laboured to play that final ball in so many games, and we need it now, not just 2 years from now. So, I donÂ’t see the fuss about getting ourselves tied up in knots over what Martinez says.

I still believe Ross can fulfill his potential. Lampard stagnated for a season or two before finding his feet at Chelsea. In fact, I believe it was after he was dropped from the England squad, then that caused him to kick on.

Ronaldo was at Man Utd for six seasons; he frustrated for the first three, with too many step-overs and little end product, ie, poor judgement and decision-making. He went from a few goals a season to 23 in his fourth season. And that was in the company of team of A-list players.

This is RossÂ’s second full season. Give the player a break.

You can get the best worldwide No 10s – it won’t matter one bit, without the right No 9 to compliment, link-up and create the perception that all top offensive players have in their locker to create and unlock the best organized defenses.

This perception that players seem to have developed through thousands of hours of practice and proper coaching. The key difference between top players and the average Joe is, top players are better at extracting information from what is going on around them. So how the feck people (so- called experts) expect Ross to start creating something from absolutely nothing considering the lad has just started his career! (ie, Get off his back!!!)

We had creative players like Arteta, Pienaar and Osman at their peak during MoyesÂ’s time as a manager. There were glimpses of what they could do, in sporadic moments in certain games. I wondered if we have those players at their peak again today...

I believe that he could have achieved more with proper backing but then allowed his frustration to get through to the players in the last couple of seasons before stabbing us in the back.

He has a much higher workrate and better leadership qualities than RM.

I have read somewhere recently, though, that Nolito seems to be on his way to Porto. It is also only a 90-mile drive from Vigo, where heÂ’s now playing, to Porto, apparently, and people say this is having an influence on his decision.

Whoever theyÂ’re after, IÂ’ll take!!

Phil @ 95, well, I think a good number of us would have hoped and thought that getting into the CL again after the 04-05 season would have been a possibility.

Bearing in mind that Arteta came halfway during the 04-05 season, Pienaar after that, and Osman peaked post 04-05.

So I think itÂ’s not unreasonable to ourselves to challenge more regularly for a CL place. We had at least a couple of 5th place finishes under Moyes though.

Petre Cech in goal, jags and stones and another quality centre half, Baines, Oviado, Garbutt if signed sorts left side out.

Mccarthy as centre midfield, another quality midfielder alongside, with Lennon one side and Marelles the other, Lukaku and an out and out striker alongside signed.

Shame we let Jelovic go and kept Kone.