Martinez: We have to turn draws into wins

But be sure to close your eyes every time there's a corner – for or against. They are the horror moments. This is Everton, after all!

It’s a long shot I know but I’m clutching at straws here and don’t want our season to be over by Xmas again. This time last season, confidence was low, our football was awful and injuries were mounting. It’s a bit different this season, isn’t it?

I am almost convinced that we, the fans, were unaware of it.

Try putting it into practice!

Oh, and get the players to be ont he same wavelength too.

I’m not antagonising myself with "if only we’d won those games" – I’ve supported Everton about 45 years so I’ve learnt not to do silly things like that.

I do wonder though what we must have done in previous lives to be reborn as Evertonians.

Also, Martinez says this week no one's place is safe and they will be changed if they are off-form. To me, Barkley and Kone should be benched. Kone still doesn’t score many for a forward and seems to slow play down. Barkley is going Rodwell-esque with sideways/backwards passing.

When McCarthy is fit, he should come in and push Cleverley up one, and maybe try Lennon, Mirallas or Naismith for Kone.

9 points off the leaders might as well be 19.

The game of football is about goals scored and goals stopped. All the rest is incidental without goals. Lukaku is having a fine season but is on his own.We seem to be almost totally reliant on him scoring. The reason why Leicester are doing so well as they have other goal scorers than Vardy.

I am getting a bit fed up with us dominating games and coming out with a draw.

Martinez leaves his subs far too late to make a real difference to a game. By the time the player has settled in, the final whistle goes. Other teams use subs early, they come on, score goals, change games. Martinez seems to bring his subs on almost as an afterthought, simply replacing a tired player, like for like, no variety or change of tactics, no inspiration, nothing, and that sums the manager up in my eyes.

He’s a big nothing, with delusions of grandeur, who thinks that just because he says we’re challengers for the top 4, it’s going to happen. He has a lot to learn about man management and team management; unless and until he does, I can’t see us being anything more than a mid-table team with aspirations above our manager’s station.

Robles played well 3 games on the trot and two cup games – benched. Galloway benched as soon as Baines comes back and Kone over Mirallas regardless of attitude of the latter.

Either sort it out, Martinez, or do one.

He thought it was over at half time did he? just like the ’complete performance’ against Villa was a sign that his team had cracked it. Roberto the game is 90 mins long, if I were a Norwich fan I would be rueing the worst miss of the season by Jerome that should have won the game for Norwich, we were lucky not to lose in the end.

Was this Roberto’s half-time talk? "Well, you’ve been superb, totally outplayed them, the complete performance, you’re so much better than them, you have deserved to win."

OK, that obviously is an exaggeration but I reckon there’s an element of truth in it. It would certainly explain the arrogance of the second-half displays against Bournemouth and today. I think Martinez is arrogant and passes this to his players which just breeds complacency.

Don’t forget Sunderland either we gave up a 2-goal lead that day too, but fortunately we scored the next and Sunderland capitulated. We also should have been 2-down to Palace but a blatant pen wasn’t given against Barry.

Always looking on the positive and ignoring the opposition’s threat by playing so openly away from home in particular, shows a lack of respect for other teams and only damages us in the end.

Many have said average player, let him go, cash in, for me Naismith would have buried half the chances we have wasted over the past few weeks.

Not rocket science, Bobby, give Naismith a run out, and not on the wing.

A phenomenal insight.

How about defending corners, stop pissing about TOO MUCH with the ball at the back and shooting on sight instead of trying to walk it into the net.

Kone a left winger? Give us a break. All we are saying, is give Lennon a chance. Older readers will get that!

But when you look at the remaining fixtures in December:

A game against high flying free scoring Leicester (who are certain to test our defence let’s be honest).

A tricky looking away jaunt to St James Park (we are usually shite around the festive period).

Then a teak tough test against a brilliantly organized Stoke defence then I can only see at best more frustrating draws at best, the way we defend, or should I say don’t defend it really is difficult to see many wins.

January is a killer month with games against Tottenham (who we rarely ever beat).

Chelsea away, where we never win no matter how shit they are.

Manchester City three times who again, seem to have Martinez’s number, at least since he’s been Everton boss.

It was around this time last season when the season pretty much fell apart on us and you get feeling the next month will either make or break us yet again.

At the moment, the team is producing good-ish attacking play but we also look immensely fragile defensively. Teams just don’t have to work hard to score goals against Everton anymore, as dominant as we were in the first half against a woeful Norwich team, in the second half we could easily have tossed away even the point we got!!

It’s a massive test of Martinez’s character and it’s over the next month we will find out if he’s actually learnt anything at all or he’s just a rigidly stubborn fool and I for one, remain to be convinced he can get things right.

Against West Brom, Sunderland and a totally woeful Aston Villa, and in two of them we managed to make hard work of things, the Sunderland game could have finished 6-6.

It's hardly scintillating stuff really is it?

Wins are few & far between. And even when we win, for me, we’re not that impressive... Sunderland, Boro.

This team better than this. It just is. I honestly don’t know what the fuss has been about lately. As far as I can see, we battered two of the worst top flight teams ever to show up at Goodison Park... and that’s it.

If I kept making the same mistakes at work every week, I’d be sacked. Just saying.

I believe in the saying that players win the first half and managers win the second. RM used 3 subs in every Premier League game in his first season. There’s no doubting he has built this squad but he hasn’t figured out how to use them.

I just saw a stat and I'm not sure if it’s been quoted already but it sums up why we are mid-table: With a 1-goal lead this season, Everton have faced 12 shots on target. All 12 have gone in... Enough said!

That stat probably is true, and I'd also like to see a table for goals conceded from setpieces or inside the six yard box, no doubt we are top of that too!!

After missing two seasons through injury, he returned this summer to a collective (me included) groan. Slowly but surely he started making a few chances, scored a few goals and made a few assists and suddenly he was walking on water. "Oh, Kone is great, how we’ve missed him, his link up play with Lukaku is superb" etc.....

Now it’s a case of "Drop him, he’s a Martinez favourite, Mirallas is much better, Lennon is better than Kone" (That made me laugh) etc.....

Move over, Ossie, the Kone head has taken your place.

Three seasons on and we still don't look any closer – despite a poor season from Chelsea and the RS.

Basic schoolboy football principles not even being followed.

We have had three draws which good teams would have won. Surely as a manager you tweak your team when this happens to produce a more competitive ethos?

I've lost count of the amount of people asking for Kone to be substituted in the second half of games, stating his legs have gone. This was particularly apparent during the second half against Bournemouth.

Not the player's fault by the way, just another example of poor game management by the coaching staff. He and Everton would benefit if he was given a well-earned break.

It’s getting embarrassing watching him, he looks knackered after 60 mins and offers no protection whatsoever. Hardly surprising considering he is NOT a left winger. Naismith, Cleverley, Besic and Mirallas are all simply better players.

A lot of people have a lot of time for Osman on here, myself included; misguided comparison.

And yes, we certainly controlled our own destiny by throwing two points away (again!!!)

Pathetic second-half performance from a mid-table team. They lack bottle, concentration, but above all, leadership. Most of them are not as good as they think – especially Barkley.

The goalkeeper
Few goals from midfield
Kone not scoring regularly

Also, there is a big chunk of the squad who are rarely going to play, either because of injury or because they are not considered good enough: Pienaar, Hibbert, McGeady, Osman, Naismith, Gibson, Lennon, Robles, Mirallas... Nine players who are hardly going to figure is a massive chunk. Lennon in particular was a dreadful signing.

This situation must be rectified for next season.

Our defence coaches must be absolute amateurs. It's not as if they haven’t had time to get their act together, is it? We will be lucky to finish top 6, based on our last three performances.

Yes, we have been good going forward for most of this season but we don't score enough goals for the amount of chances we create. That's a problem in itself because, at some point, we will have a dry spell and – if the defending is still shit – we won't even get draws. It's that simple: teams with shite defences rarely win things...

The one bright thing about our defence has been the performances of Funes Mori. He has been top drawer.

Today was almost a must-win game. Next week's game is... But, based on our last three outings, we will get jack shit from a really good Leicester City side. I will be there cheering the lads on but we may need 3 goals to win it...

Come on, lads... tighten up and let's get 3 points in the bag, for god's sake. Don't we suffer enough????

I want to go back to playing the hard teams because these easy ones aren't half hard to beat.

Nicely framed piece of sarcasm but, until the supporters and, more importantly, the manager and team, realise that – whatever points Everton glean from any given fixture, they have to be earned and are not gift-wrapped for us to take home as a given – the better.

The league table never lies; at this moment in time, Everton are the 9th best team in the Premier League and, by this time tomorrow, probably the 10th best side... Wins are what matter in any league – if you don’t win often enough, you ain’t going to be in the hunt for anything other than mid-table or worse.

Oh, hang on, that sounds like us in most of our matches!!

About halfway through the season and we’re behind Watford, West Ham and Crystal Palace.

Great movement for his first chance and didn’t do much wrong, keeper was just out quickly to smother the shot. Second chance he wasn’t even played through – he chased down a defender, won the ball, but again the keeper was out and on top of him.

All day, he tracked back, caused problems in attack, and was one of the few who could control the ball on the soaked pitch.

I genuinely thought he was our best player. Which admittedly might be a bit like being the tallest midget.

When you see the "I’m only following the match on the live forum but..." types slating him then, yes, he’s the whipping boy.

The (or one of the) biggest disappointment for me was Deulofeu's 2nd-half show. After screaming like a big girl, he seemed to get upset by the booing. You need to man up, Gerri.

As Colin (#9) rightly points out, only 9 points off 1st at this stage of the season is not a bad place to be. We have some real quality in our ranks and, for the most part, we are a very attractive and exciting team to watch.

What pleases me most is that the boys look like they are enjoying their football which is a refreshing change from last season. If we can bolster the squad in January and add a goalscorer to take the burden off Rom, we could end the season competing for top four, no question.

Man City and The Arse are top 2 for my money but the rest is up for grabs. A winnable semi-final to come and every chance of a good FA Cup run. I’ll take that. COYB

The team had just beaten QPR at Goodison on 15 December 2015, when the crowd infamously gave out the cat-calls:

Pos 10th
Pld16
Won 5
Drawn 6
Lost 5
GF27
GA 24
GD3
Pts 21.

We are 2 points better off, having played some really good football this season, but the results haven’t reflected our dominance of so many matches. I pray we have a better holiday period than we had last season.

I think Gerri has got everything in his locker to be a truly phenomenal player. Phenomenal in the truest sense of the word, that is.

I always supported the need to accept Deulofeu’s mistakes if you want the game-changing elements, but he seems to massively run out of steam in second halves. Once you hit about 60 minutes, he’s stopped tracking his man and is just waiting for a break.

He went to bits today and, aside from the assist and a couple of other runs, you’d be kind in describing his performance as poor.

To be fair, he is amongst the ten top goalscorers in the league this season.

We are a shade better than last season, and thankfully have seen the back of Alcaraz, and hopefully McGeady. However, our lovely attacking play is very dependent on Geri, and his axis with Lukaku. Prior to Geri’s appearances, we really were scraping the barrel and looked to Ross or Rom to do something special.

As soon as Geri was removed, we simply dried-up. Norwich got a few whacks on the lad and he went to jelly. Now everyone will do the same. I was thinking "Where is our enforcer, to protect him?"

It took Kone, of all people, to put a hit on their centre half, who had been dishing it out all game, and tried to push Mirallas into the crowd.

Will the team learn from today? They have done similar things regularly all season, and continue to lose their way.

We lack a bit of balance on the left, but mostly the fact that we didn’t sign the elusive number ten in the summer is the big problem. Stoke got Shakiri, Palace got Cabaye, the Hammers got Payet. All these guys were on the radar, and any one of them would have enabled us to link things up in the middle. I wonder why we didn’t get one?

The most frustrating thing is that we actually have looked good for 45 mins in so many games. I am left scratching my head, wondering how we can go from heroes to zeros with such regularity. It doesn’t seem to matter which players he picks, so it is down to the manager. His whole possession-based plan comes off the rails as soon as the defence is pressed. No Plan B.

I’m inclined to assume the latter. Here’s the thing. We’ve scored no goals from set-pieces and we’ve conceded tons especially from corners. Surely they could spend a miserly hour at least coveting basics, eg, Have a man on the post etc. It just seems unbelievably arrogant to think we are the one team that’s too good to worry about set-pieces. The facts don’t back up the strategy.

According to the Echo’s Phil Kirkbride:

"Everton have been working on defending set-pieces at Finch Farm, they knew it was something that needed addressing, but if the supporters had their way, it would be all the players do in training this week."

Apart from the two centre-halves (and Galloway), we have no-one of any size or weight who can head a ball.

I remember Fergie taking Ashley Young to task on his diving. Probably time for someone – maybe Dunc to have a word with Geri.

What the fuck are defenders for? We have international defenders who are all decent footballers but struggle with the most basic of tasks... getting organised at corners. Obviously Martinez must take some responsibility, but these players have been defending corners their whole lives. Great footballer John Stones is... he can’t attack the ball in the air.

I have never rated Howard, a huge monster who has no idea how to command the six-yard box and claim crosses. Mate, you jump and stick your hands up and you will be 10 feet off the ground... you are not playing against Michael Jordan, you knobhead. Sort it out!!!

The opposition managers must say they might score but they will definitely give you a goal... just force a corner or a set-piece freekick outside the box, get your centre-backs to run in at speed, and you will get a free header.

Howard is the main culprit: he dosen't instill any confidence in his defense with his stuck-on-the-line tactic So what are the coaches doing about this situation? Absolutely nothing because it happens week after week Norwich had two men at the back stick unmarked so obviously some of our defenders are ball-watching and we concede

Do what you're paid to do and sort this shit out, coaches. We are dropping too many points because of lack of professional leadership. I understand and appreciate these are professional players and it should come natural to defend a situation, but my beef is why is it happening every game? One-offs happen, but this is far from one-offs... Sort it!

Their goal wouldn't have mattered if Lukaku and Kone had put away half their chances in the first half. That's where the three points were lost.

Okay, where to start... The team is set up to attack, not defend, play great one-touch at pace, can play out from the back and create. Lovely. We have a keeper who does not command his box, we do not have a central defender, or anyone for that matter who makes a cross his, and attacks it.

We do NOT have a no-nonsense leader, bully, hard man, at the back. Jags is not the guy; Stones isn’t... Shawcross is; Terry is. We need a guy that the young players get the praise, direction and rocket from on the pitch. We bottle it when the going gets tough, way too easily.

Tactically, we play down one flank. Deulofeu loses the ball more times than he gets a cross in; far too often he does not deliver, runs it out or looks amateurish. He has brilliance too but the inconsistency can be painful to watch.

Kone and Rom obviously like to play together but tactically we are unbalanced on one side. As a result, we have wingers sitting on a bench and a no nonsense striker who would have finished both those one on ones with the keeper today and almost certainly will be let go in Jan. it makes you weep.

Midfield? Gibson today played well, made quite a difference from the non-existent Barkley. We're missing McCarthy and Barry cannot do it all.

We need a few bits of steel in the velvet glove. A Peter Reid, a Kevin Ratcliffe and a Neville Southall... you get my drift? Three players you could build this present team around.

The unpalatable truth regarding Kone and Naismith is that they are both not really good enough for a team with ambitions of getting into Europe via the league. The same could be said about McGeady and Lennon although like Naismith he tries his best but isn’t quite up to it.

Seeing as Roberto has said there will be little activity in the January window, this coming summer will be make or break for Everton FC and lord knows what team we will have in 12 months time given that so many of our young players are coveted by the rich clubs.

My major immediate worry is the lack of defensive cover, given we only had Galloway on the bench today as a recognised defender and nobody apart from Lukaku seems capable of putting the ball in the net on anything like a regular basis.

Two points better off than this time last year is pretty sobering and we appear too reliant on too few key players in order to get points on the board – strange state of affairs really and, as with so many things in the game of football, it defies logic.

As frustrating as conceding from a corner (again) was, we should have been out of sight by halftime.

I counted three guilt-edged chances that Lukaku missed; Kone had two one-on-one opportunities with the keeper (the second one admittedly was tough), Baines struck the upright (unlucky to be fair), and poor control / taking the wrong option let Deulofeu down on a couple of occasions.

Now that I’ve had time to simmer down though after that result I can see another result akin to Villa/Sunderland coming in the next 2-3 games; if we play a 45 minutes like that over 90 minutes. Therein is the issue (and immense frustration!!!) – consistency. This team is sublime when it wants to be, they just need to focus for the full 90.

This season we’ve been given a massive opportunity by the sheer averageness and inconsistency of the top sides. Leicester, Watford, Palace and Spurs are seizing on that opportunity – but in the last three games we’ve totally blown it.

The real question is, of course... Why? Whilst our ability to defend corners is a notable issue that Robbie has to take responsibility for (both in evident lack of preparation and in goalkeeper choice – much as I actually like Howard, his inability to come and claim is now a clear millstone), I don’t think the answer can all be down to Martinez. In the first-half he didn’t instruct the team to miss a hatful of chances and I just don’t believe he instructs them to sit back and capitulate at the start of the second.

We have the talent clearly to score goals and win games, the problem is now a psychological one – for me we’re lacking a vital bit of leadership/winning spirit/killer instinct out on the pitch, that extra bit of competitiveness or nasty streak required to give the extra %.

You’d hope Barry would provide that, but it doesn’t seem to be the case, Baines though experienced isn’t a leader and the rest of the team are too fresh faced or nice really.

It’s not just us to be fair: Man Utd had these players in Keane, Scholes, Giggs, Neville, Butt, etc and you’d have thought that Schweinsteiger was brought in to provide that but it hasn’t worked out.

Chelsea had them in Terry, Matic, Costa and Fabregas (although they seem to have lost their way there too).

So who is it? In our squad, I think the likes of Besic and in a different way Jagielka and maybe Naismith are probably the closest we have – fighters or leaders.

I was quite surprised Naismith wasn’t given a run-out to be honest, especially considering the need for something different and scrappier late on. Otherwise it demands a delve into the transfer window.

Oh and on the subject of substitutions, I think its relatively instructive that Mirallas (who we were all clamouring for) did pretty much nothing of note in the 22 minutes or so he was on the pitch and nor did taking Barkley off for Gibson produce any notable improvement with 15 mins to go.

This isn’t to say that Martinez ability to influence the game with subs and tactical changes isn’t weak, but rather that I’m not sure what else any armchair manager would’ve done in this situation (apart from maybe Kone to Naismith on c 70).

Why are we chalk and cheese when we are ahead at halftime? Obviously the opposition has a chance to regroup but that’s too simple an explanation too. Would it really happen every time?

Second half we see a totally different performance. Deulofeu stops tracking his man and plays spare, ready for the break. We stand stop pressing the opposition; inviting them at us. Fitness or strategy?

Behave.

We are soft and mentally weak. A home side, still firmly in the game at 0 - 1 are going to have a spell on top at some stage. I had little expectation we’d survive it. We have a soft center, mentally, physically and defensively.

Part of it is the emphasis of the management & coaching staff. Look at the goal, static, ball watching , nobody attacking the ball. The mentality isn’t there.

Now I don't expect Moyes like resilience as this is a completely different way of doing things. But the basics have got to be in place.

Part of the problem for me is that we just have to accept Stones growing pains. He’s going to be leaving anyway, but as a center back defensively he has some growing up to do. Part of me thinks it would do him a favour to get away from Martinez & his coaching staff as from a defensive standpoint he will remain a boy under them.

Thirdly, we are just a very poor side without the ball. From open play we cannot defend the box, don't stop crosses, don't pick up men & give up too many chances in general. People go on about Howard, rightly, but its not like we protect him, he faces more shots than anyone. We invite people to have a go at out diminishing keeper!!

As much as being potent and having goal threat makes you believe, you also get the feeling the wheels could come off. This riskier, more attack minded but hit & miss approach may bring a cup but we aren’t doing anything in the league as over the course of a season the holes in the approach are exposed.

Howard – it is was it is but he will never change and dominate the 6-yard box. So that hardly eludes confidence to the rest of the defence.

Stones – A beautifully cultured player who is still young. But I’m struggling to remember him attacking a ball and winning many headers in our 6-yard box from corners etc. No doubt this comes with more age / experience.

Funes Mori – Pleasing on the eye and has settled well but neither him or Stones is the leader of the centre of defence. Consequently, you have situations like yesterday where they leave it to one another when the ball is in the middle of them.

Baines – in the side because of his attacking threat. Specifically the early diagonal ball to Lukaku. But stopping crosses has been a weakness for a while and at the moment he doesn’t understandably look match fit, therefore is being done for pace and no doubt we’ll see more crosses from that side.

Crosses / Corners – our Achilles Heel and other teams know this and are probably practising more before they play us! So hence we’re seeing very similar balls being played in and very similar goals being conceded. Possibly the situation won’t change until we have Jags back.

Just my thoughts boys and as I say all very frustrating.

It has been an Everton characteristic for a very long time and we need a hard-edged winning manager to change it. Martinez won’t do it and such people are rare of course. I’d be keeping an eye on that chap at Bournemouth though.

Much too narrow with Kone out wide. This needed Mirallas and Lennon to hug the touchlines and give Norwich’s fullbacks less space. Martinez is a stubborn fucker.

I think Baines has regressed defensively under this management team and therefore as a player. Same goes for Seamus Coleman actually.

In the past, most clubs had this type of player. Do they exist now? Look at the other clubs. Who are their leaders?

"When a team plays badly, it is because of the manager.
"When a team plays well, it is because of the players."

Then, lo and behold, we draw this game and the very next post match interview he states "phenomenal" twice. Stop trying to have us believe we are Barcelona.

Through the middle, his link up play with Lukaku is good but he is not a natural goalscorer. I suspect Naismith would have taken the two chances Kone had yesterday.

However many chances were missed, and I agree the game should have been killed by half time, we came out in the second half and were utterly woeful. Yes, Norwich improved but we looked like a different side.It happens too often.

The manager must balance the ship. Sadly he cannot be blamed for defensive errors and not taking chances. Sadly we seam to lack leadership on the pitch.who is taking the lead, shouting at players to concentrate, and mark their man. A team of youngsters need on going instructions as they will lose concentration from time to time.

Unless we take our chances or tighten up, mid table is coming. This summer we may lose our key players to champions league clubs. The squad we have should be top six at least. The manager must act now or he may miss a big opportunity.

If we had not dropped the points from the last three games we were winning we could have stood 3rd in the Premier League today!

Stop playing favorites!

Make everyone work for their money.

You have a bench to be proud of-use it! What’s wrong with Naismith, Besic, Pienaar, Osman, Lennon?

Barkley, Cleverley, Deulofeu, Kone, Funes Mori, could have been dropped and made to work for living if you had the balls to manage the bench to make it compete.

My thoughts are we have hit the ceiling with Martinez. In his first season, we had a solid defence in place and a keeper who was decent; with this we gained some momentum and had a decent run at it.

Season Two we went backwards, mainly down to Martinez being far too stubborn when big decisions needed making. Howard had major issues which Martinez did not address. Alcaraz was used instead of Distin, costing us some vital points. Barkley was used out of position. Eto'o was wasted.

Many other issues... in fact, only a decent run in Europe stopped all hell breaking loose. You all watch us, you’d all know what sort of things went wrong.

This season, we all look decent at times, but the biggest problem we have is how obvious our attack is, and how vulnerable our defence is when trying and failing to defend set pieces. Three games in a row, we have to watch the same issues we had in game one at home to Watford.

We lead comfortably against Bournemouth, Palace and most recently against Norwich only to blow all three games on set-pieces and piss-poor defending. Surely to god a manager of any standing can work on defending set pieces and can drill a team on the art of lasting 90 minutes instead of 45?

This may sound harsh but, for me, Martinez can't push us on, he needs replacing by a man who can see how games are going and act before the shit hits the fan.

Any fan could see how the Bournemouth game was going 10 minutes into the 2nd half. Any fan could see against Palace that we couldn’t find a way through. We had a bench full of game changers and Martinez ignored them all. Against Norwich every blue knew what was destined to happen once we only took a single goal lead into the 2nd half.

WHY COULDN’T MARTINEZ SEE THIS?

My answer is that Martinez is not good enough to manage a top Premier League team.

Watching Barkley trying to cope with the new left midfield role was quite painful. After a couple of fine games where he got into the box, he now had to operate like a left-side McCarthy. With a head full of instructions, his passion and mobility were severely dented.

Apart from Deulofeu, Naismith and, to a lesser extent, Mirallas and Coleman, our squad is made up of fairly quiet individuals who are never likely to rock the boat. Okay, three of the four lads mentioned were signed by Moyes but it’s hard to imagine the Martinez boys and the rest of the group not having the mentality to win things.

Our boss is impossible to understand and I could sometimes hammer him day and night. His interviews rattle my brain but I would never say he had a frail mentality. This guy is tough and ruthless with the tunnel vision of a man on a mission. He’ll make mistakes like the 2nd half at Bournemouth but he misses nothing as he learns what certain players can do or cannot do.

Norwich was our 4th game in 14 days. Not many people realize that. City have probably had more but their squad strength and a big deflection got them through.

In truth, I have no idea what goes on in the head of RM but, if I stick to the belief that he is gradually putting a good squad together, it makes me feel better.

I agree totally. I said at the end of last season that the only reason Martinez's first season was so good was because the team still had the Moyes defensive mentality in it. Add that to the nice free flowing attacking football that (no question) Martinez has brought to the club and we had a very good balance. Players were playing with the confidence that Martinez had brought and everything gelled.

Our problem at the end of that season was that teams had sussed us out, we struggled to pick up points and lost our way chasing Arsenal for 4th which was well within our grasp at the time. This was down to Martinez not adjusting to the situation. At that point I felt that the following season was going to be a struggle – and it was. This was down to what Anthony has stated above.

We lost the defensive solidity that had been drummed into us and I’m not saying that I’d prefer Moyes to Martinez but you have to give credit where credit’s due. Moyes would not have let 6 points go down the drain the past few games but then again we wouldn’t be playing the free flowing football we are at the moment. Martinez is good at some things and completely woeful at most other things so what we need is a mix of them both.

Anthony, I also don’t think Martinez can take us to the next level but I’m not sure who can with the underlying problems we have at the club. Our past two managers have been very good at opposite ends of the pitch – is there someone out there who can do both?

I am getting very fed up with Martinez. Corners (both ends), favouritism, slack defending, substitutions, no Plan B, players playing out of position, Kone playing 90 minutes, Howard! And if I hear "fluidity" or "phenomenal" once more, I’m going to fluidly stick a phenomenal fork in my eye.