Martinez's praise for Naismith and Stones

Not since the United win has Goodison been bouncing. Still buzzing... fantastic weekend for football. Let's hope we can kick on from here.

Results and as importantly performances like yesterday surely indicate we've got a good one here who is worth persevering with even if there are a few more bumps in the road to come. Back the boss!

In seasons gone by, the Champions League was the promised land that only the obvious few could ever dream of reaching. Just by getting to the group stage 5+ years ago would bring a club £20M and they would have gone out and bought 4-5 decent players from this, yet £20M would struggle to get you a bang average Charlie Austin and not even one over-inflated Berahino.

From next season, English clubs will no longer be looking at the finances of Champions League football and how that will catapult them onto a much bigger platform. The last TV deal, which ends this season, has allowed even the most so-called smaller teams like Stoke, Bournemouth, Watford and Crystal Palace to go out and spend money that could only have been earned by getting to the Champions League, and that is going to be even more obvious come next season. Teams like Chelsea, Man City, Man Utd, Liverpool and Arsenal will all have to get used to losing more games over the course of the season as these lesser teams will be spending at the same wealthy plate as themselves.

The exciting thing for Premier League fans is that any team in the English top flight can beat any other team and I think that was the stark reality to Mourinho on Saturday against an Everton who didn't need their £40M for Stones because we already get very good TV revenue. The Premier League is a different place since Mourinho was last at Chelsea and almost any team now are able compete for any other player in the transfer market.

The massive downside to all this (and there had to be one) is that with Premier League clubs already skimming the best players from across Europe, this will only get worse. I can see players like Ronaldo, Bale, Robben, Vidal, Pogba, Neymar coming to the Premier League as a result of the vast finances here and it will only make to devalue the other bigger leagues around Europe.

We are getting together a really good squad of players here and with the addition of maybe two quality signings in January to boost competition for places gives me a lot of heart for the future.

This is exactly why the likes of Naisy are a big part of the squad. He may not be the most gifted of players but he gives you 100% which some players don't. Made up for him yesterday.

Also this is why we desperately need to keep Stonesy; he is irreplaceable. Lets hope Besic's and Coleman's injuries aren't too bad as we have too many players in the treatment room as it is...

Well done, Blues; same again next week please.

Having said that, I still can't understand Shaqiri linking up with Stoke!

As for the Premier League, they argued, as you do, that with the TV money teams below the Rich Six can now afford a higher quality player and shorten the gap. The days of easy games are well and truly over and, with the elimination of the ridiculous FFP rules, the playing field might just become a little bit leveller.

Finally, he's grounded. He's a working class man who is made up to be playing football for a living and never forgets the background where he came from or the people who pay their money to see him, and the rest of the team, play.

If every player at Everton had his qualities we would win a lot more matches than we lose.

Living and learning.
Roberto.

The first thing I hoped for, was Everton, to start playing faster, entertaining football this season. It's early days, but going the match already feels so much better. Long May it continue.

I have been a critic of Naismith but he was awesome. He could also school some of the other players in how to put a foot in and rattle the opposition.

We had no money to spend, it was very cold out there, and we had no recognised striker, and Bilyaletdinov was having one of his many many stinkers of a game. As I shivered, I thought to myself, it couldn't get any worse than this. And it did; we lost 0-1 too that night.

Fast forward 3.5 years and we have spent 㿈M on Lukaku, ٧.5M for Funes Mori; we have regular England internationals in Baines, Stones, Barkley, Cleverley and Jagielka: we have turned down 㿀M+ bids for Coleman, McCarthy and Stones because we don't need the money..

What a change from that grim night against Stoke.

As for the game, well I thought Lukaku was fiine and on another day have had a hat trick. Barkley looks like he wants to control a game. His decision making is improving and he is a confidence player. He is going to be very special.

We have some really promising players and on the pitch there could be good day ahead.

This is where you need a manager who can instill a team spirit and make the team greater than the sum of its parts. Moyes, for all his faults, was very VERY good at this. Martinez seems to not quite be there yet on the latter part, although the team spirit seems to be back to its 2013-14 level (maybe a couple of bad apples upset the cart last year?). But hey, who knows. All I know is, based on this year's first 5 fixtures, I'd have easily settled for 8 points from those fixtures.