Martinez's flawed concept of football?

I'd sure like to see what exactly was said.

Most of the ’don’t practise set pieces’ is about Roberto not seeing corners as being a great source of goals.

Here was one such article.

I’m not sure I have ever heard that we don’t practise defending corners, however, if we don't, it's clearly not working.

Now it’s more like 50 goals. To be fair, that’s only judging from last season and this. First year under RM, we conceded 39, which is on par with OFM years.

Really? I’ve only heard him say that once or twice. What I hear is usually that we were unfortunate to concede lucky goals, or that we didn’t concentrate hard enough. His game is focused entirely on attack. Even defenders are chosen for their ability ’on the ball’.

Defense doesn’t seem to be a consideration tactically, just something that happens naturally, and if it doesn’t work out then it’s either unlucky or a matter of focus and concentration, which is the only way the team is to blame.

Clearly Martinez requires every player to be comfortable in possession, be it the goalie, defender or striker. He believes in creating opportunities as opposed to playing the percentages. Clearly he’s no Graham Taylor with Watford and also, he’s not like Mourinho whose concepts are about winning, no matter what tactics.

Perhaps a wrong example, owing to little silverware they have recently won, but he’s more akin to Wenger and his philosophy although I do think he’s different. I hope he’s better but that remains to be seen.

He wants us to have our own style; I think that’s great and I hope he changes our club and philosophy from top to bottom. He seems to like that he’s doing this and I may be in a minority but I like what he is doing.

I am prepared to be patient as, although short term failures are annoying (ie, lost points already this season), I think the club needs fundamentally changing. I don’t want to be Swansea and can understand concern of fans. I may be wrong and concerned fans may be right.

One thing I can’t fathom is why, throughout his tenure, we never press teams – I can’t remember any game when we’ve don’t this. That said, overall I’m impressed by Martinez, I take comfort he tried to sign Dann and I take comfort that he knows (don’t we all) that we concede too many for set pieces.

Maybe he’s rubbed off on me as I take comfort in a strange way that we have had 3 draws in games we should have won. It means we can’t paper over the cracks (as we have despite slackness against West Brom, Liverpool and Sunderland) and the defence and shape of team needs urgent addressing. In the long term, this is good.

In the short term, I can’t wait for Christmas: semi-finals of the Capital One Cup and loads of exciting fixtures coming up starting with Leicester.

We spent years watching Moyes have us ’well drilled’ , ’organised’ and ’resilient’. The pundits on Sky loved him for it.

Although he did well for us and I’ll always be grateful for the respectability he brought back to us, we also saw some turgid displays that, on occasion, wreaked of fear.

Martinez is quite baffling at times, as most fans think of their manager, but I’d prefer to watch us play this way than the boring, safety first, ’knife to a gunfight’ stuff we witnessed under Moyes.

I honestly feel simply bringing in Robles would tighten up the defence. Howard was protected under Moyes but now we obviously need a more commanding keeper. Even Bobby can’t deny this for much longer.

Until we have a procedure that is coached into the players, we will continue to ship goals no matter who is playing.

Remember, this is a manager that thought he could keep Wigan up by leaking a record number of goals in the Premier League and then thought he wasn’t the man to bring them back up.

He didn't concede a record number of goals in the PL.

My main worry is that there are a growing number of people who support Everton, who are more concerned with the man himself, rather than the team. It is easy for us as spectators, looking in from the outside to point out the perceived flaws in the make-up of the manager and team – or his individual and the team’s collective errors – that have seen us concede some silly goals, However, there are very few goals scored at either end of the pitch which come about without somebody making an error somewhere along the line.

My own position is to let the man get on with his job, get behind the team and see where it takes us as a club. If, by the end of January, we have failed to at least reach the Capital One Cup Final and are still struggling to win football matches, then perhaps enough evidence will have been acquired to suggest that Martinez the manager hasn’t quite got what it takes.

If, for some people, that is too early – a proper review of the season’s events come May should be enough for the club’s leaders to decide on their next step.

If Martinez does well then Everton FC does well and vice versa; the two cannot succeed or fail independently. So, from that point of view, the supporters cannot continue to castigate the manager without eventually harming Everton FC’s chances of being successful – not that there aren’t some who believe that Martinez is quite capable of doing that by himself without our help.

I wish Martinez success only because he is the manager of Everton FC and that should be good enough for all Evertonians. If Martinez and his team fail to win enough points during the remainder of the season, his fate will have been sealed, whatever any of us may think of him as a manager.

Personally I think it’s a case of Howard always being average at best when it comes to crosses and us missing experience in defence. Would be interesting to see a breakdown of goals scored from corners by defensive partnership. I don’t seem to recall us conceding so many before Distin was put out to pasture.

Either way, Martinez needs to sort it. It’s now a known weakness and you can bet your arse that teams will try and exploit it. Particularly with all of the wrestling and ’clever’ tactics that go on in the box.

"....the way we folded was embarrassing, and the goals we conceded were again too easy."

"Even with some of the best defenders in the league, balls into the box have troubled us too much this season. It’s a problem that showed again on Tuesday."

"....yet again we cannot seem to 'ride out' a spell of opposition pressure without conceding a goal (or two)"

"Our main weakness, however, was again defending set-pieces and crosses, and to lose the game with the last kick of the ball was hard to take"

Seem to sum up our defence under Martinez pretty well don't they?

Except they're all from May 2013, the last season under David Moyes, when our defence was supposedly some well-drilled machine that could swat away danger from set-pieces with their eyes shut and were never caught with their dicks in their hands.

Link

Our propensity to give away soft goals and to struggle to cope with balls into the box certainly hasn't improved under the current manager, but to claim the problems only started with his arrival and were virtually non-existent before that is bollocks.

I agree that RM is secure but, and I am very aware that this is a gloomy view, I believe we have already blown our chance of getting top 4. I happen to think we’ll beat Leicester and that we’ll do well also against Newcastle and Stoke but we then run into an extremely tricky January and we won’t have the cushion we should have had.

Managers don’t change at this level and RM certainly isn’t going to change. Above all, I fear he’s a poor man-manager and that there is a slackness at the heart of the team which he will not cure.

Norwich was the final straw for me and while I will, of course, continue to go and support the team, I am afraid that I cannot invest any trust in our manager.

In fact, I wold bet he could finish 11th for the next three seasons and he'd still be our manager! We are a rudderless, ambitionless mess of a club at present, who's only objective is to stay in this League.

Could it possibly be that the flaws we saw in the final season under Moyes you refer to, as well as each season since, are because we have had a keeper between the sticks that can’t command a 6-yard box, let alone an 18-yard one?

We are a ’rudderless, ambitionless, mess of a club at present’

I know you are not the most optimistic of sorts but come on.

We are still only six points from CL position, we have some of the best young players in our squad we have ever had, we are actually unbeaten in seven games.

Yes, we probably should have more points but really?

We all know that RM is a more attacking manager than Moyes, and will be happier to score two and concede one than KITAPO. It's one of the things that was generally taken as a positive.

The not practising corners thing was just about attacking corners, and there's a relatively strong statistical basis for that approach. I haven't seen anything to suggest that we just don't practice defending set pieces. It might not be as great a focus as it was under Moyes, but similarly we demonstrate far more imagination in our attacking play...so it's always a balance.

Ultimately, against Palace and particularly Norwich, we should have been out of sight before a set piece slip up was a factor. So RM is right that being more ruthless in attack is a huge factor.

There is still huge potential in this season, I think. We could keep slipping up, and that'll be immensely frustrating and disappointing. We could start getting the results that some of our performances might warrant...and I think that'd be a sight to see.

I see what you did there. Moyes's teams did at times, defend like a bunch of pansies, but you've tried to put a case together by using 3-4 opinions that (justified as they probably were) don't actually mean anything.
They could have been made over the course of a season, or even during a particularly bad spell, who knows?

The comments in your post could have been referring to anything, a Distin pass back, a sloppy Neville ball, Hibbert miscontrol, all things that happened often enough to still be clear in the minds eye... but we are talking about dead-ball situations here and only one those comments refer to dead-ball situations... contrast that with the dozens/hundreds of posts we see on websites and forums every day criticising Martinez's team's inability to defend them.

You know it's gotten a whole lot worse, I know it, the players know it, the dogs in the street know it... even Martinez has finally recognised it.

We are? According to who? The OP makes reference to more aspects of defending than simply dealing with set-pieces. (Anyway, like I’m one to worry about going off on a tangent?).

As for the rest:

The comments were all referring to the same game against Norwich in May 2013 (the link to the Echo piece was included to show when and where they were from), but clearly make reference to the same old weaknesses being exploited repeatedly throughout that season.

That doesn’t constitute my attempting to ’make a case’ or defend our current defending. If that were my intention, you should know I would be stating it in much stronger terms than that.

It was simply a snapshot from a time immediately prior to Martinez taking over in order to demonstrate that, contrary to what some now seek to claim in retrospect, we weren’t this ideal, nigh on impenetrable, rock-solid outfit under the previous guy either. Indeed, many of the same complaints people have now were present way back then. I don’t state that based solely on the few qoutes I posted, but from my own memory, moans and rants at the time.

Truth is, I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve read such ill-thought-out, lazy, tongue-lolling over the bottom lip belters like ’There’s absolutely no way we would ever have conceded such soft goals under Moyes’. (Or my personal favourite: ’What we need to do is to get Moyes back as a defensive coach’) that conveniently elect to forget that we let exactly the same kinds of soft goals in pretty fucking often. Whether it was quite as often as we do now, wasn’t really the point I was making, was it?

There is another common denominator between then and now.

Actually that could explain what is happening on the pitch, they're still playing with the imaginary ball and ignore the real one.

You yourself talk about "swatting away danger from set-pieces with their eyes shut with their eyes shut"... so we are talking about set-pieces.

Moyes's team did occasionally concede from set pieces - show me a manager who's team doesn't . . if nothing else the law of averages would determine that they will ALL concede at some point. Even people like Tony Pulis who dedicates half his life to drilling his players cant completely eradicate the problem.

To suggest the problem already existed when Martinez came along is a bit of a stretch, Moyes may have been a miserable twat, but defending corners was never as much of a concern as it is now

Nothing new in Everton conceding from dead ball situations, what is new is the alarming regularity with which we are doing it since the current manager took over.

I hate to blow away your seemingly solitary defence of Martinez (The two wrongs making a right, one) but given the choice I would take the current manager over the former manager all day long. Unlike you that doesn't make me blind to his obvious shortcomings.

Your repeated attempts to portray anybody who criticises Martinez as an admirer of Moyes merely serve to confirm you don't have a counter argument.

Try again.

You are the one who constantly compares Martinez to ginger so you shouldn’t really complain when your fallacies are exposed. Do you really forget the moaning and groaning under the former regime? The negative play, the defensive mistakes, the square pegs and round holes, the untouchable (shite) players who never missed a game when fit, the lack of ambition etc.... Do you really miss that?

Let’s make a deal. Stop comparing Martinez to OFM and just attack Martinez – that way we won’t have to keep reminding you that the ginger messiah didn’t really walk on water.

This is about a manager who has won a league title, an FA cup, and delivered Everton's best season, results and points wise, for twenty years. I will also throw into the equation his relegating of Wigan, which was inevitable given where they came from and where they are now.

I wish I was as flawed in my work and career as Martinez apparently has been in his.

Jesus, could of been talking about El Bob there Colin. Had to double take.

With the exception of Galloway and now Jags, there's no-one that RM can bring in that would seemingly improve our defence. Jags, for all that he's a good defender, heading high balls appears not to be his strong point either.

Changing the goalkeeper is worth a try, and see if that changes our fortunes.

I admit he did a great job, initially, moving us away from the constant relegation battles into a top 6-8th team but he was no saint, or master defensive genius, or tactical wizard as some are trying to make out.

In fact, he was fucking boring to watch and listen to and his teams capitulated miserably on many an occasion. So I wish we’d stop talking about him and just talk about the present incumbent.

I would strongly suggest you take a look at what I actually say about Moyes... I think you get really hurt by criticism of Martinez... tough, TW is about honest opinion.

I support Everton, not the individual who is lucky enough to pick the team. I hope I never go down the path of blinding myself to the failings of the manager.

I'll love and respect Bobby if he delivers, then he will have deserved it. I can't stand all this blind devotion to a man who has already wasted one season and is in danger of wasting another.

These players are good enough; we won't have them forever.

If he sets the bar for you, no wonder you're contented with the mid table mediocrity we are suffering now.

Martinez should be lambasted from all for corners of Evertonia for the way we have squandered points this season, but still you will blame everyone and anyone to hide his failings.

If you keep telling him how wonderful he is, why would he feel the need to improve? You're already happy...

At the end of the day managers come and go but we, the fans, are left to pick up the pieces.

You say our players are good enough for top 4, I hope your right. We have a squad that may make a serious challenge, but we are lacking in a few positions. At quality No 10, a top distributor in midfield, and a better goalkeeper would radically improve us.

We have 6 players, and that’s stretching it, that would be first pick in the usual top 4 sides.

It can be a bit drawn out at times I will admit, but I like it (admittedly), just a little, it’s nice to see people’s different views.

But back to the current misfit, I find it strange, how (and I’ll give him and his staff, plus what’s left from the TGT era (there he is again) credit on the squad we have mustered together, question being: how you can have the vision to have such potential and a good squad, but not see defensive mediocrity and the substitutions, knackered players? Etc.... Maybe he should sit in the stands like Smith, now there’s a manager.........

Our defence was better under Moyes and our offence under Martinez. I can’t believe anyone would attempt to argue differently. Moyes inherited a team battling against relegation, and Martinez a inherited a top 6 team. In the last seasons under Moyes we were consistently amongst the best defences in the league despite our limited budget. In 2010-11, we conceded 45 goals. In the season following only 40, which was the joint third best in the division. In 2012-13, we again let in only 40, which gave us the fourth best defence in the league.

Martinez admirably kept that going in his first season, where 39 goals against made as the third best in the division. But there were clear signs of that defensive togetherness waning, and a strong suggestion that the first season’s stats were the legacy of the Moyes era. This was backed up by our showing last season, in which we conceded 50 goals. This was the 10th worst in the division, and relegated Hull conceded only one goal more. This season we’ve conceded 21 with 16 games gone, leaving us on course to match last season’s 50, despite the lack of European football. Currently we are joint 10th in the goals conceded column (alongside West Brom and West Ham).

The alarming thing is the clear regression in defensive strength. This is obvious from watching a game, or from looking at the statistics. We have been generally weak defensively, but especially weak from crosses. As of the 7th of December, only 4 teams had conceded more open-play crosses than we did (West Brom, Watford, Sunderland and Leicester). We also allowed the most headed shots in the league (35, with Norwich next on 32) and the most headed goals. This is not just because of Howard, or a inexperienced centre-back pairing, but because our wide men are not providing enough defensive protection.

Martinez has had so much more at his disposal than Moyes. He not only inherited a superb squad, but has had the money to add to it (with a good level of success). In two and a bit seasons, Martinez has spent more money (net) than Moyes did in over a decade.

I do not expect Martinez’s teams to let in the 3rd or 4th least in the league. He is a different manager to Moyes, and we can expect more goals but less clean sheets. Yet, we have to work on clear weaknesses, and cannot expect to get top 4, or perhaps even top 6, if 9 teams in the league are conceding less than us. We have to be able to defend a lead, especially against the league’s poorer sides. To ignore this problem is to ignore the significant statistical evidence.

Darren – our first 11 might be good enough for the top 4, but our squad isn’t, and league football is a squad game. The likes of Chelsea, Arsenal, Man City, Man United and even Liverpool can leave £20mil players on the bench; we can’t. We have no real backup for Lukaku. We only have three senior centre-backs, and two of those have less than 50 games of Premier League experience between them. We have no backup to Coleman. We lack creativity in midfield, except for the brilliant Deulofeu, whose absence will hit us almost as bad as Lukaku’s would.

Judging Martinez based on a supposition that we have top 4 quality is to judge us above the level that we are. I believe that we are a top 7 team with the capacity to challenge for top 4. This season would have been the perfect opportunity to challenge, and still is, because Chelsea are stuttering and we are free of the European games which most of the genuine contenders have to face. But the young team is inconsistent, and we lack the depth to change things and rest players who will suffer for it in the second half of the season. Although Martinez’s frustrating failure to use Mirallas more rids of us a genuinely talented attacking option who could take the load off Deulofeu or Kone at points.

I think it’s easy as a spectator to do two things, which appear contradictory. Those are: to imagine that our weaknesses are worse than they are, and that our strengths are more than they are. Our defence is not horrific, but we are operating below the standard that we should be. We are not a mid-table defence, and if anything, I’d take our first choice defensive players (Baines, Coleman, Jagielka, Stones and McCarthy) above the majority of those in the league. But unfortunately I think that so much of our attacking strength is based around Lukaku and Deulofeu. Barkley and Kone have also performed admirably, but I personally believe both have limitations, and that both have done so well because of the freedom of a Martinez set-up which renders us weak defensively.

The frustrating thing is that I think we are close to something special with this team, but that we are just short. If we could turn back time at this moment, and bring back a youthful Arteta, Pienaar and a younger Howard, I think we’d be genuine top 4 contenders. At the moment I think we are too short, and I feel that injuries to the most important attacking players would significantly damage our capacity to compete.

Whatever our capacity or potential though, we cannot expect to achieve anything if we cannot defend a lead. We should have scored more against Palace and Norwich and put the result out of sight, but we should be able to defend a lead too. We simply cannot be in a position where we have to score 3 goals to win a game. This has to change a little in the next 22 games, or we can expect an 8th-10th finish and bids for our best players.

It wasn’t some magical formula, plenty of men behind the ball, and twat it when put under pressure. Anyone can see Martinez wants us to keep the ball and play from the back (rightly or wrongly); maybe that’s one of the reasons we concede more?

To me that’s pretty extreme mate. We are a young(ish) team playing some great football. We’re in a cup semi and, if we had finished just a bit better in just our last 3 games, we’d be right up there in the mix. We still might get up there.

Okay, we didn’t finish those myriad of chances – but is that Martinez’s fault? To me – no it isn’t. He has sent them out there in the positive frame of mind to go and create such chances. Their poor finishing is exactly that – their poor finishing.

Yes, maybe on the defending from dead balls – IF (it’s in capitals so it is a big ’if’) he doesn’t practice corners – then that would be a huge Martinez mistake, but I find it hard to believe that a premiership coaching set up does not work on such basics. (Especially as we are now proving fairly inept at dealing with them.)

Personally I wouldn’t have Ross in the box. He seems to be a common denominator for these travesties. Unfair – maybe. But I’d have him up field looking to break away in case Howard ever deals with a cross correctly.

The last three games have seen 6 points dropped. Games we should have definitely won. A fair bit of bad finishing; a slice of bad defending; some very exciting play – and Lady Luck has been on an extended holiday. But when have we ever been lucky....?

I couldn’t have put it any better, we have had two managers who approach the game with a slight difference. Hence why we now concede more but also score more goals.

The defensive coach means you can win games 1-0 with this more attacking coach you might need 3 or 4 goals, which is extremely hard in the Premier League.

I wish we could have the best of both managers, then we could challenge for a top 4 spot on a regular basis.

My question is, what would the board be content with? No trophies? Well that's a given. 8th or 9th? Isn't that the position we budget for?

Even if we do slip to 11th, Martinez or any other manager isn't going to lose his job over it. Bill Kenwright is suffering from a serious illness, Woods & Earl are just biding their time until a decent offer comes along. Day to day running of the whole club is left to Elstone. We all know we aren't getting a new stadium, and Goodison will be painted over for the umpteenth time next season.

Rudderless & ambitionless? Absolutely. Unless anyone can tell me there is a plan in place to progress this club, then the future could easily see a dramatic demise on the cards.

You may want to read the OP. Kelvin makes comparisons and by submitting his piece he is inviting others to discuss. You were very early when John (#18) posted something you agreed with.
The comparisons only became "odious" when a few posts compared Martinez unfavourably. You can't have it all ways.

3/4 of the squad where here before Martinez and it is inevitable people will compare how they played before he got here to how they are playing now. The thing you have never understood is... It doesn't matter who the last guy was. This is the here and now and when people judge Martinez, they will look at where we were when he got here and where we are now.

Well thought out and reasoned and for that I thank you. What I don’t understand about the Martinez supporters is how they can feel he is so clever and talented a manager building something so that no one can question his "plan", but then these same RM fanboys continue to criticize his choice of players. It can’t be both ways.

If RM favors Kone and Barry, along with Howard in goal, then how can the Martinez acolytes keep wanting Besic, Naismith, Mirallas, and Robles? Someone posted on the Naismith article that RM can see the players in training every day, so if he isn’t playing Naismith (and Mirallas by extension), then they must not be showing enough to replace the field players. So if Roberto is seeing Besic and Robles practicing and not starting either of them (neither is 17 or 18 and in need of protecting FFS) then Robles is clearly not good enough, as his cup performances have shown, and neither is Besic.

Odd that under Moyes we did mark players in the box even if we ultimately conceded goals but under Martinez, we don’t stop the crosses from coming in and we don’t even mark the players on the receiving end. Odd that this coincides with the featuring of John Stones as a center back, who is to put it kindly, soft in the air and invisible on set pieces. Can anyone honestly say that opposing players fear going into the box for headers with the current group of center backs (I have hopes for Funes Mori) and mids compared to clashing with Distin and Fellaini?

I believe that RM has a flawed view of football being played in a way that requires players Everton cannot afford to field. I believe that possession is overrated as a stat and that shot tempo (shots taken compared to passes made) is a better indicator of game pace, quickness, and effectiveness. His view and style will continue to permit Everton to finish comfortably in 7th-12th position year in and year out with the occasional bump up to 4th or 5th. This would seem to be where Moyes had us right?

Player selection is a subjective thing, and there is often a disjuncture between training and the real thing. Pressure, or the intensity of a game, improves some players but negatively impacts on others. Harry Redknapp, who I don't rate anyway, was ready to let Bale go out on loan and was possibly ready to sell him, until injuries forced his hand. Bale came in that January? and was incredible from that point on. The old stat about Spurs' failure to win a game in which he started or featured (I can't remember which) disappeared, and he became the most expensive player in world football. He is a perfect example of the difference between training and a game.

Now Martinez has a little stubbornness to him. It is harder to perceive, because Moyes was outwardly prickly and dour, whereas Martinez's positivism would lead us to believe he is anything but stubborn. But his failure to play Mirallas illustrates that, as does his unrelenting faith in Howard despite Robles' good cup performances. Personally, I'm not sure Robles is better than Howard, but I am sure he deserves a chance to prove that he is.

Martinez is a good manager but not a great manager. If he is only good, then he will need to go, because we need more than good to compete with the top end because of our financial issues. The football is fun at the moment but frustrating, and a great manager would learn from the side's decencies and make changes. The Jury is out on Martinez, and I think those who utterly condemn him or wholly believe him are both wide at the mark at the moment. The manager, like the players, has alot of potential. But will it be realised?

I still feel we have the best squad of players for a very long time, so why aren’t we winning? Well it’s our management team! We seem incapable of changing our game plan, we don’t seem to get consistency from our players, we only have one way of playing, we do some basic stuff badly, and we never change badly performing players at half time!

How many times have we dominated teams in the first half only for the opposition to make one or two changes to completely flummox us? But we still persist in playing the same way!

The Everton way of playing has been sussed by the other teams, it’s from the back into midfield maybe passed back again or its out to our one winger who will try and cross or play into our centre-forward, the opposition once they get used to the pace of the game (which is normally slow) they can press our midfield and stop the ball going to our one winger which then stops the supply line into our centre-forward (we also only ever seem to get one player into the box anyway?).

The gap from our midfield to our forward is too big; the gap between our defenders and midfield is too small, in fact Barry is often sat between the two centre backs which means it’s easy for the opposition to press on to us and push us back!

All the above could be improved with good management!

My point is, with this squad of players, we are massively underachieving; this has to be down to our management team and the tactics they employ. Not to get into the top six this season would be a massive failure with this squad of players.

Sorry, bit of a rant! good post though, Kelvin, and some good comments.