Abject Everton remain leagues behind Arsenal

To Everton FC just strap a pair on and get rid of him now.

The guy was found out last season and this season he has presided over the best squad in a generation and brought it to it's knees.

Moshiri please, do the honourable thing... they shoot horses don't they?

I honestly think it is time for ToffeeWeb to campaign to get this man out of our club. He will relegate us. I urge you to act.

They must know that Martinez's brand of football, his "philosophy", does not cut it in the Premier League. Long & short of it is he doesn't win football matches. Perhaps the infuriating, but increasing, stream of players stating we should be doing better means that the squad's consensus is they just don't rate him?

I've come to the conclusion that he's not suited to being a Manager. He's more a coach or Head of Academy or Youth Development type. He has to go in the summer. His career shows he cannot get results in this league & we are regressing badly. Going into next season would be a major and foolish risk, irrespective of any outcome in the FA Cup.

I would love to see anyone else in charge of this team in the weeks to come, to stop that situation from occurring. Could Big Joe be wheeled out instead as a tribute to his 'Dogs of War'? – I quite like the idea of Barry as a player manager over the last few games of the season!

I admire Lyndon and Michael's writing and a lot of the other posters too, even though I don't always agree. I think as supporters we have to start setting our own narrative. Maybe we have to do it ourselves through our own collective writing – and isn't that the point of a forum after all?

Positives in me see Moshiri to act after the FA Cup, win or lose. Only problem will be our tolerance for this circus while it still runs.

We really missed Barry today, I don't know how he will be replaced.

Billionaires are not impressed by phonies.
He will deal with it his own way.

In terms of performances I have watched live over the last 60 years or so, this must be the worst.

That they are a talented bunch was demonstrated last week but all too often they fail to string two decent performances together. It's as though we have TWO teams – one cares and one doesn't!

Only a psychologist, or perhaps a half-decent manager, can sort that one out.

If they are Barcelona-lite then we are certainly Arsenal-ultra lite.

The game is simple when you watch how they pass and move into space, always running off the ball and passing where it can actually hurt opponents. All our attacks mount up to are a load of shite crosses usually from the fullbacks Coleman and Baines.

I saw blue statues yesterday, I don't think we used players, we used statues, no movement, no interest. The midfielders were as bad as I've ever seen.

Martinez and his coaching staff it has to be said, are frauds, nothing more than frauds. Maybe if he'd been sacked last season after various debacles then we might have moved on from this position now.

That was our TENTH home defeat since May last year... Don't even get me started on the lack of wins..

Today's game showed how inept Martinez is. With Barry out, he chose to try to keep the same formation and style of play despite not having the players to execute the plan.

Wenger's tactics were as expected, he pressed with three very high including no real right sided midfielder and Bellerin pushed into that space behind Sanchez. This put Everton in a situation where we had Baines with lots of space in the first half but without Barry to distribute and Cleverley tucked inside as usual, we couldn't take advantage going forward. When they had the ball, Cleverley was always too far inside, Besic was too indisciplined. It looked the same in the first half on our right as well with Seamus getting overrun by Welbeck. Barry, whether we like it or not, organises the shape in-game. Nobody did that today, certainly not the manager and his coaching staff.

The decision to switch to what looked like 3-5-1-1 is second half was a disaster. The back three looked like they hadn't practiced this and were clueless in terms of positioning, picking up players and it made our play even more disjointed.

By now Wenger's tactics had won the game and he could afford for his full backs to sit deeper and to ask his forwards to be closer to his central midfield compressing the space. Our manager responded by having a narrow midfield with Ross and Lennon close to McCarthy and Cleverley where our most creative player in Ross couldn't get on the ball. This clearly wasn't Plan B, that obviously doesn't exist and looked a panic move.

Our back three were totally uncomfortable on the ball, neither central midfield player either wanted the ball or had the ability to do anything with it and Coleman became our only attaching threat. Deulofeu's introduction was too late but was Martinez's only correct decision of the day.

In truth every player was very poor today but the plan and formation couldn't be executed without Barry and Wenger's tactics, knowing we were without Barry, were predictable.

What was Martinez thinking Arsenal would do? Has he spent all of this week basking in the success of last week where he couldn't make game management mistakes as his substitutions were forced on him.

It was obvious to see that we needed to impose our game by forcing their two centre backs to be stretched wider and their full backs to be pushed back. We needed an out ball forward quickly by having Deulofeu or even Niasse playing which would allow us to hit the ball forward and then support. This would release the pressure of their forward press. None of their forward three were ever going to track back in a big way.

Martinez and his coaching staff were completely out-coached today, his players were poor, nobody demonstrated any leadership but he also gave them no chance either.

I remembered today that under Moyes, we were really difficult to beat at home and his teams were able to impose themself through strength of character in the team, their work rate and his iron-willed discipline. All of this is gone and Martinez's teams lack any of these capabilities. We are weak mentally and are one dimensional. In-game management is non-existant.

It's not good enough for Everton to perform as we have this year, he's not the calibre of manager we need and a change is needed urgently.

Over to you Farhad!!

Completely agreed! So many times during this game there were no decent pass options. And, when the likes of Rom had made some space, the ball was not sent through and was 'tippy-tappy' passed around the back four.

Our transition from defence to attack seemed to be at snail pace.

Unbelievable.

I wouldn't show it to Martinez: it would be like showing a man from the Stone Age an airplane and telling him to fly it.

People say Leicester's rise is built on 2 players; it is, but those 2 players are not Mahrez and Vardy .... they are Robert Huth and Wes Morgan.

They don't have great natural ability; what they do have, is guts, desire, organisation and a bloody-minded refusal to be beaten.

They are not thinking about moves Barcelona or PSG ..... they're just 'getting it done' week in and week out.

I'll bet that Aguero and Sanchez look at the Leicester team-sheet and think 'Oh, Bloody Hell' .... then they look at ours, and think 'I'll have some of that'!

It's amazing how people used the "we only played 3 days ago" moan as an excuse for failure.

I said last season not being in the Europa League wouldn't make us better, it was nothing more than an excuse for poor management.

And regarding the mid-field, it took me about 20 mins to realise Barkley was playing. And then there'e McCarthy, runs a lot, tackles a lot and then what, passes sideways or backwards. Same goes for Cleverly. Everton are full of Ray Wilkins type players. Everton just don't have a midfielder who can make a defence splitting pass. They haven't had for years. Barry sometimes but not often enough.

And why has Coleman become the default crosser of the ball. When Deulofeu came on Coleman still wouldn't pass to him, dribbles himself usually down his chin and the puts in terrible crosses. Appalling stuff really is!!

A League One manager with League One backroom staff.

Not a touchline animation from any of them... No heart, no passion, no clue.

Just leave... go.

I don't feel let down by Kenwright & Martinez, it's worse, I feel betrayed...

Offer Simeone a good wedge and a big bonus for winning something and he'll crawl here, he'd soon have them fit and fighting for the ball.

They love a pound note those South Americans.

Ronald Koeman would be a sensible choice of manager, his stock in the game is high and he's a man with intelligence and a clear plan.

So Martinez fans, and BK, make opt to defend him by way of our away record this season. If so, let's look at that;

0-3 away at Southampton in the second game of the season. They were bedding in several new signings, again, and they're way ahead of us now. This was also the first away match in 19 attempts where we succeeded in not conceding at least one goal. Incredible.

In the next two away we nilled Spurs and Swansea... for two whole points. Phenomenal.

We beat WBA next, having been two down. It has to be recognised though that before half an hour had gone two of their defenders had succumbed to injury.

Beaten at the Arse next, we then got a draw at the 'Ammers before THAT draw at Bournemouth. We prized a draw out of mighty Norwich next before a 90+ minute header got us a win at Newcastle. As an aside we nilled the Barcodes as we had Villa at home the match previously. As a further aside they were both then in the bottom three. Fantastic!

A creditable point at City (0-0) was followed by a discreditable one at Chelsea (3-3) and then our surprising 0-3 at Stoke. Our current manager (I tip my hat to Ken for that!) then said "We have to make sure we don't drop our standards now", which meant we obviously lost our next match, at home to WBA.

Next on the road we did a famous double over Villa, cut adrift as they were from the rest of the PL. Yippee!!!!

Away games to come are United, Watford, our neighbours, Palace, Leicester and Sunderland. Right now, out of them, I'm only confident of finishing this shite season above Sunderland.............. hopefully.

Great away record? Hmmm.

In order to do the honourable thing, he ended his career by falling on his own silverplated fish slice. This practice spread throughout the ancient world culminating in what we now know as hari-kiri.

I can dream, can't I?

I would be happy with Koeman based on his work at Southampton, but only a big name will satisfy everyone's criteria and only the likes of Emery or Simeone will do. IF the wage difference in EPL and La Liga is as much as some people say, why not take a shot?

Sevilla don't seem likely to win the La Liga (though 2-3 Europas kinda big deal also) and Atletico would be happy to win 1 title every 5-10 years. Tuchel's also a up and coming name thrown around before, so definitely worth a shot.

And guess what? In this era of opportunity for any club to do well we are in the bottom half and Saturday we were shown to be a league below Arsenal our former peers. It looks as though our Strongest squad in years is no such thing relative to other EPL teams. Our manager is a proven incompetent apart from making us a great attacking team away which alone is insufficient to make a successful team.

We have tried to make a go of it and without doubt increased quality by keeping Stones and paying top money for a striker. We have failed because our peers did it better than us.

Pretentious – "What a joke" is more like it...