Watford vs Everton

Failure in the next few weeks and there is surely no way back for Roberto Martinez.

I'm just waiting for the season to end so I can re-charge my batteries and try and muster up some enthusiasm for next season.

Hold on, we are being linked to the likes of Nani, Carrick and some nobody from Bristol. I might skip next season as well.

I suspect none of us will be happy if we lose tomorrow but, if it's the catalyst to rid us of the Catalan, it will at least be acceptable. What a dreadful state of affairs that is.

Maybe a win on the National to improve the day.

Keep checking Sky Sports News, they might go live to Finch Farm with some breaking news....

Can't be long, surely.

A Leighton Baines winner for us deflected off his gluteus maximus will do. Now that would deserve a standing ovation.

God help us!

Robles; Stones, Jagielka, Coleman, Lennon, Barry, Barkley, Deulofeu, Lukaku, Niasse.

Let's play Barry as a holding midfielder and Barkley more forward. Lukaku needs support so it's time to give Niasse a start and see how it goes.

Looking forward to this game in these interesting times. Hoping of course for a top performance from Everton but the atmosphere among the travelling fans is going to be mighty interesting to see.

COYB

Will be 4 central midfielders and 1 winger? Or 3 central midfielders and 2 wingers with one of them playing out of position and with no Left sided player.

I am not looking forward to watching the game at all.

I have seen a few post's on Twatter that there could be "Martinez Out" banners at the game.

I think the away fans that always support the team will be giving Martinez hell tomorrow.

Baines
Baines, Baines, Baines, Baines,
Baines, Baines, Baines, Baines,
Baines and Baines.

I only hope he gives them bains in the ass!

Somebody said on another thread that a poll shows 82% of people want him out and in excess of 10,000 have already voted, no doubt spurred on by the Baines situation.

Of course nothing would stop me from wanting an Everton win but if Watford turn up tomorrow and destroy our "chemistry", the post match interviews will be interesting.

Anything else and it may be the end of the season. Either way, it looks increasingly likely that we will be looking for a new manager.

Man Utd are lining up Mourinho... what about us? Hiddink will feature in many people's thoughts. Who else is out there?

I have, this week, struck a number of bets based on us achieving a 50 points finish and included in this vision is a win at Watford. This is based on my view that we MUST have a good run soon even if it does save The Philosopher's neck!

Here's to all the right chemistry on Saturday!

I won't be watching tomorrow either as life's too short. If the board don't give a shit about what's happening on the pitch, I'm not going to waste my time either. I will get some brownie points with the wife instead by doing some DIY around the house.

I'll tune in for the derby and the semi (hopefully will be there!) but the remaining league games... couldn't really give a toss – unless we have a new man in the dug out.

Even if we win tomorrow and Wednesday (big IF), chances are we'd only go up from 12th to 11th – whoopie doo...

I'd be keen to look to the future and try one or two youngsters, though Barry has to start. Player of the Season potentially.

Robles;
Coleman, Stones, Funes Mori, Galloway;
Besic, Barry;
Deulofeu, Barkley, Lennon;
Lukaku.

Bench: Howard, Jagielka, Cleverley, Joe Williams, Dowell, Niasse, Evans.

Newcastle and Sunderland all have winnable games between now and the end of the season, Couple that with the experience , Both Rafa and Allerdyce have too.

By 6pm Saturday night we could be in 15th with only 8 points between us and Sunderland. All the teams below us at that point have been is a relegation Dog fight and know what is expected. Everton players however have not. even the players that have been with us for a long time have never had to fight relegation. That is the worry.

If you look at Wigan's results the season they got Relegated they won 2 games between winning the quarter final and the cup. March to May.

Look at our remaining Fixtures:

Watford – Still need points to be safe.
Crystal Palace – Still need points to be safe
Southampton – Chasing Europa... Plus they probably want revenge
Liverpool – Well enough said.
Bournemouth – Dead rubber.
Leicester City – After Silver
Sunderland – Relegation dog fight
Norwich – Relegation Dog fight.

Scary?

Surprisingly, no-one appears to blame the players either!!!

"Romelu has been really consistent and is someone you can rely on, he never misses games.

“Oumar Niasse is still adapting to the competition and probably Arouna Kone has been unfortunate not to have more minutes than he should have.

“But he has been working well and I just feel he is getting ready to help the team again.

“Part of the competition of allowing players to be on the pitch and see where they are, I think Arouna has been a little bit unfortunate he couldn't get more minutes than the ones he has had.”

Un-fucking-believa...BULL!!!

Sunderland would have to win a minimum of 3-4 games from their remaining 7 (they've won 1 of their last 10 btw) AND we'd have to lose ALL of our remaining games AND the teams between us and Sunderland would also have to jump over us.

Newcastle are 13 points behind us so would need to win 4-5 of their remaining 7 games as well as all the above. That is simply not going to happen.

We're safe – we don't have any 'must-win' games in the league (derby aside – which is more of a 'must not lose' scenario anyway).

Relegation is just not going to happen – nevermind the fact that Sunderland still need to play Leicester, Arsenal, Man City and Chelsea!

Personally I think Newcastle are already down along with Villa (still have Man City, RS and Spurs to play) and they're already 6 points from safety.

Final place is between Norwich and Sunderland imo – who play each other next weekend. Although Palace will be feeling a bit nervous if they can't get a win soon. Swansea and all above are safe.

Going by the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of TW posters we are not alone in fearing for our once mighty club's future prospects, be it in domestic or European competition, and it is all down to one man who's name will go down in Goodison lore as a master of oral manipulation and hypocrisy yet still be supported by an inane bunch of boardroom autocrats.

Our wonderful fans deserve so much better and will, as usual, turn up in their thousands tomorrow and the rest of this Benitez blighted campaign to urge their boys in Blue to a possible Wembley final.

The notion that the players can take to the pitch and do whatever they want in defiance of their own manager is far-fetched. The fact that they did just that in Kiev last season in the second half was a major sign of "losing the dressing room". That they continued through April and freed our club from a real relegation threat spoke volumes more and Kenwright, if he's the fan he says he is, should have been adding his voice too. Several players (Baines, Coleman, Lukaku) were quoted in the Press saying they'd succeeded by reverting to the old Everton way.

Martinez calls the shots though. It his fault, and his alone that we're in the mess we're in and little or nothing to do with the players. I hope they now just turn on him en masse.

"Everton players however have not, even the players that have been with us for a long time have never had to fight relegation."

You are forgetting those star players that he brought to this club from Wigan – Kone, McCarthy, Robles and Alcaraz (now departed) all of whom were indeed in a relegation battle under Martinez.

There would have to be a cataclysmic chain of football results for Everton to get relegated this season. However, if he remains next season, I would fully expect us to be in a relegation fight by Christmas.

Hopefully this will happen after defeat at Watford.

I am not scaremongering, Just looking at the games we have and what might happen, I didn't say we could go down, however come the end of the season we could very close to the drop zone. That is just a matter of pride really.

We only need to win one more game and we are safe (OMG that hurts to right). So yes this is a must win game.

we are 12th now but if performances don't pick up we could finish the season in 16th.

If that did happen, with 6 or 7 senior players out of contract in the summer and Barkley, Stones and Rom attracting suitors, add in Mirillas that is unhappy, finishing that low in the table, we could be left with 7 first team players at the club come 1st July.

Every fucking game is must win.

I though Martinez was building a new era?

Haha never thought about that, Jesus!!

Every week, there seems to be another nail in the manager's coffin... "He must have some big coffin because that's a lot of nails..."

That's the real soap opera. Will he play or will Roberto really choose to sophomorically "punish" Leighton for his comments?

Especially as Baines said nothing wrong or damning in the least!

The decent players we have will all be getting an earful from their agents and families to leave and go to a Champions League club. I really cannot see us keeping Lukaku or Stones regardless of what happens to Martinez and Mirallas is already half way out the door. Ross will stay as he's a blue, unless we get a silly money offer – could happen if he has a stormer in the Euros. There aren't really any players I'd cry over losing. Jags, Baines, Coleman etc are all good players but not irreplaceable. At the end of the day all players leave at some point, the main thing is to bring in decent replacements.

Wouldn't be surprised if a deal's already been done for Rom to go to PSG and Stones to one of the Manchester clubs.

There will be a massive clear out this summer as about half a dozen senior players are coming to the end of their contracts. Add to that the likes of Rom, Stones and Mirallas and that's a good 10 players who'll be gone come August. I've said on another thread that this summer is the perfect time to bring in a new, quality, manager as he'll have a massive amount of freed up wages to sign the players he wants as well as transfer kitty from the sales of Rom and/or Stones.

Looking forward to seeing a much better, balanced squad come August with a massive amount of old deadwood gone, including our current brown-shoed manager.

Be interesting to see if Baines starts, RM will really be digging his own grave if he drops him.

The slow death continues...

As it is, what with our fucked up chemistry and all, we'll be doing well to salvage 12th.

It's tiring worrying too much and getting as furious as I've been over the last few months. If I stop getting so wound up then everything may start going right.

Or not. Oh well.

I couldnt even be bothered to have a go at picking the team tomorrow.

This clowns latest diatribe says that "None of the teams through to the semi finals have won a game since" as if that is some sort of excuse for the teams performance and results.

Roberto you are running out of excuses and if Kone gets a game tomorrow that may well be the final nail in your coffin.

Phil S, the Foxes aren't playing until Sunday, so get behind your team, young man!!!

"Martinez also brought his coaching staff from Wigan, who were also part of the relegation battle."

Should read " Which is WHY they were in a relegation battle"

Potentially got two tickets ......

Text me on
07879551102 if you can help.

I MAY have a spare ticket also.

I particularly want to show my support for Leighton tomorrow and I hope Martinez doesn't manage to screw things up- though you'd be a fool to rule that possibility out. C'mon Everton – Onward to Wembley!

It isn't punishment if there is an "injury."

But they have the excuse that they were just following the managers orders.

Hope for a win, but fear it will not happen.

Playing at home the opposition expects Everton to have the lions share of possession and because this dick head has us playing so far up the pitch in search of goals, teams are happy to pick us off on the break as we watch our defenders try to run back to goal but in vein.

The reason this doesn't happen in away games is because the opposition expects themselves to have the lion share of the game by being the home side. The result of this means we now have two teams pushing high up the pitch, and because we mostly have better attacking midfielders / strikers, we will end up winning more games away from home than losing.

So my reckoning means NOTHING is going change if my analysis is correct.

Feel free to text me on 07879551102

Neil

I only care about winning the FA Cup and seeing Martinez get the sack and seeing us build a new era under new ownership and management!

Hopefully Moshiri has already been lining potential suitors regardless of the FA Cup!

The Niasse situation is unbelievable. Only Everton get these deals. Remember 6 ft 7 in Traore? One game, one goal and gone.

I see Pulis is hedging on a new contract so perhaps he may be keeping his options open. I would give him a shot if the Mourinho rumours is just that.

I am struggling to bring myself to look forward or have any anticipation for that semi final because I worry that us winning the cup will see us going into next season with Martinez. We know we have a very emotional co-owner in Kenwright but I expect the euphoria over an FA Cup win means Martinez keeps his job and I just can't accept that.

The game's the thing.

I'm being a bit of a pious hypocrite because I've been vitriolic about the manager but we owe ourselves a break and some simple enjoyment as Evertonians.

Who knows, tomorrow may yet be a break in the clouds – we've got a good record there, remember the 5-4? That's when I knew we would win the title.

His public belittling of Leighton Baines shows him to be a spiteful little Hitler and Martinez should be made to apologise to Baines for his ungentlemanly and un-manager like behaviour, totally unprofessional. Also like you, if carthorse Kone gets anywhere near the playing field tomorrow, I vow I will not watch another Everton match this season.

Niasse is a typical example of Martinez double speak. He signed him, told us how great he was and now he may be sending our third most expensive signing to play for the U21s! Something stinks at Goodison Park these days and its name is Roberto Martinez.

MARTINEZ OUT.

Moyes's teams bored me shitless and I still hate the ginger bastard for what he did to us.

Martinez just makes me angry and I gave up caring around Xmas time.

I predict we will get twatted tomorrow, by the way, and I couldn't give a shit.

And, who knows... he may actually keep hold of some of our want-aways. If nothing else, he could be trusted to spend £150 million or so, and would have the clout to attract that sort of player? Just a thought....

I really am at a loss, as to why our board are still persisting with Martinez. Do they not look at the League position... do they not notice the disharmony in the team.... do the not notice the decline in some of our better players... do they not notice the shit, losing football that we are now all witnessing... the list is bloody endless.

The players might just have to do their own thing in the Cup semi-final. Because we will not win by playing Martinez's tippy tappy possession crap.The players might just have to take the bull by the horns, and do what is needed. Regardless of Martinez. I would trust our senior players to have enough nous to come up with something, other than Martinez's stifling tactics. Just get things right on the day.

Why the fuck do we need a manager. Especially one who works against the good harmony of the team. Let the players work it out for themselves. They are starting to get the message. And not before time. That is that Martinez is not a manager.

I hope that we win tomorrow. But that's the best that I can do... Hope.

I fear for us in the derby... Again, I am hoping for the best... and right now, I would take a draw.

I am also fearful of our game against Palace. By the end of April,we could be hovering around 14th or 15th in the league,and out of the cup. And Martinez will still be our manager. Will this nightmare ever end?

But there again, we could win our next four league games, and also be in an FA Cup Final. That's the few beers talking.

Martinez out.... Joe Royle in... for now.

Since the news broke on Conte's appointment I've hoped that our board have been doing everything possible to get Guus as our next manager.

He would be that step up from mediocricy to genuine quality with good experience both domestically and abroad.

And as Ian said, a manager who could attract the big names and finally we can challenge the top four.

If Newcastle can get Rafa and Leicester can hire Ranieri, then we too should be looking to this level of manager.

I smell a dodgy hamstring...

Funny thing is at this point with all the ridiculous chaos, I'd not even be surprised!

My God it's bad...

It's like rubber-necking, watching a train wreck, and stepping in shit all at the same time.

The only man capable is now at Norwich. Naismith may not have been the greatest player but he would have been a shoo-in for this and the successive games. Another great Martinez decision.

People focusing on Leicester, not caring if we get battered today etc Dear me. Really? We've been in far worse states than this over the years, please get a grip, it's all part of the Everton experience.

Today is vital as an indicator of whether the players are going to back this manager when he's under pressure. Another performance like Arsenal or Man Utd and he should go to save our chance in the Cup.

Like us Watford have nothing to play for in the league but we need a performance today to install belief again even if it's just to get us to the summer. Big game for that reason.

I always want Everton to win no matter who's in charge so, COYB!! Do it for Bainsey.

I think there could be a split in the camp, and Martinez will play players who he feels are on side with him.

If Everton play badly and put In a half hearted performance that ends up with us losing the board must act in my opinion. Yes, the pressure is on....

I'd like Cleverley in centre midfield and give Barkley a rest, I think the lad needs a rest and we are better playing with Cleverley who will play the whole game and do a solid job, no he will not have the creativity of Ross but he will compete for the ball all the time and we will be all the better for that. Ross should come good but not under this manager.

"Baines is included after apologising to team mates for his remarks about a lack of chemistry in the squad."

I thought he is supposed to have apologised to Martinez, not his team mates.

Unless the Daily Mail have got it wrong?

Just football, I guess!

I think a win may improve spirits but think Martinez may now have disappointed the Board (who decide his fate). Mistake having a great first season... which is so crazy.

The game itself is a bit of a non-event, BUT the performance of the players should be very telling today.

I can see the bigger talking points being our fans' response, Baines's selection and Bobby's words after the game. If we lose he can't make excuses; win and he can't gloat.

I don't know if someone has hijacked your computer because like me from day one you didn't want RM. But now you are distancing yourself from the hanging mob, yet you were the original Albert Pierpoint.

Brendan Rodgers almost won a title for the RedShite yet they sacked him for far less and far sooner than what Roberto has inflicted on us. The entire Everton fan collective has to now wake up on matchday with nothing but dread and apathy. Fucking done with it.

I am not interested in this season any more and I probably speak for most when I say even success in the cup would not be enough to ensure Martinez earns another season. His increasing detachment from rationality,the loss of confidence by the majority of the supporters and by the sounds of it the dressing room as well leaves his position untenable.

Get your coat, Mr Martinez, and close the door on your way out.

Robles; Coleman, Stones, Funes Mori, Oviedo;
Besic, Barry;
Lennon, Mirallas, Cleverley;
Lukaku.

Dropping of Baines nothing to do with his statement etc, purely on football, as also the lazy ineffective Ross, & the mediocre Championship player McCarthy.

Roberto out anyway by end of season, whatever the results are in remaining games.

The mere fact that somehow beating a team like Watford, with its impressive EPL history, should somehow placate a crowd and a fan set says it all really, doesn't it? Keep the pitchforks and torches at the ready and don't check them at the gate boys!

ps: I once met old Albert in his pub at Mere. Seemed a decent bloke!

Barkley isn't fit to lace Payet 's boots let's be brutally honest and not biased.

I suggest a London club, with money and about to get a new stadium, will have been more of a draw than us.

If he gets the football side right so that for the rest of this season, we become a vibrant, fighting effective winning side, then why would the Board dismiss him?

If his team selection, tactics, substitutions suddenly turn us into a team to match anyone...and beat most, then maybe the alchemist has discovered the right formula for turning base metal into gold.

If, the fans at Goodison roar the roof off seeing the team tearing apart feeble opposition, then maybe we have a manager who has gone through a long, dark, vale and come out leading us into the sunlit uplands.

Maybe Kenwright has got it right and, from now on, the parallels to 1984 could be realistic rather than dreamland; and The Board might be joined by the fans in saying "What a manager!"

If he shows progress to something like the first season's exciting football, then maybe the major shareholder will have enough faith in him to spend tens of millions of pounds for next season's assault on the top 4 places.

So, football wise then, the next couple of months are going to be extremely important for Roberto Martinez...and for Everton Football Club.

However,

If the last half of this season is anything to go by, the signs are not looking good for us to see an invigorated Everton team, tearing into the opposition. Apart fron the Chelsea cup match, it's been point after point and game after game thrown away with no sign of an understanding as to why it's happened

What's worse, in my view, is that he has made this even less likely by his treatment of Leighton Baines because I think that will concentrate the minds of the players wonderfully.

Nevertheless, miracles do happen...so people say!