Roberto Martinez must rebuild his Premier League reputation
IT IS around nine months since Roberto Martinez was handed a new contract by Everton, the ink having barely dried on his original deal, with the accompanying press release hailing him as “the best young manager in Europe.”
Roberto Martinez's Premier League reputation needs rebuilding
Everton’s exploits in continental competition suggest the accolade may have some merit, though in the bread and butter of the Premier League Martinez finds himself with a reputation to rebuild.
Thus far his side have made only a pudding of it.
End of season victories over Newcastle United at Goodison Park during the last decade have tended to point the way forward with wins securing fourth and fifth place finishes in 2005 and 2008 respectively.
A repeat tomorrow and the out-pouring that follows will simply be of relief. Defeat is unthinkable.
It feels pertinent to retrace the circumstances which conspired to force Everton to rip up the contract last summer the Catalan had signed when arriving in June 2013.
They had just finished fifth, with a record Premier League points tally, the School of Science was apparently back in session and Martinez’s suitors stretched from Tottenham in North London to AS Monaco in the South of France.
The scramble persuaded Everton to lock down their asset, though that serves only to bring into sharp focus the current disconnect with supporters, whose frustration at the tepid performances which have brought just three home league wins threatens to manifest itself into open revolt.
If there is a genuine sense of bewilderment that they should find themselves precariously balanced above the relegation mire, then the real surprise has been Martinez’s inability to come up with an answer to arrest a slow slide down the table.
The manager who conjured the 3-4-3 formation which kept Wigan afloat one season, or who a little under a year ago played with split-strikers to bamboozle Arsene Wenger and Arsenal, stands accused of being inflexible.
The moment we overcome that we will be a strong team again because the talent is there
Roberto Martinez
Martinez has doggedly adhered to his belief of building from the back even though many inside his own squad feel the philosophy has been picked apart by rivals.
Opponents have focused on stopping full-backs, Leighton Baines and Seamus Coleman, from rampaging forward, while content to allow Everton to have possession in defence where their passing becomes ponderous before lacking penetration in the final third.
The fact Gareth Barry, James McCarthy and Mo Besic have failed to contribute a single goal between them serves as an abdication of responsibility for the modern midfielder.
Thursday’s victory over Dynamo Kiev pointed the way forward with the hosts thriving when picking up the pace, allowing Romelu Lukaku to run at opponents.
The modern-day manager must be part-time psychologist and Martinez offered up yesterday that the problem lies in the mindset of his players who have become weighed down by early season setbacks when the trend of squandering points from winning positions was set.
“It was not a tactical or technical change between the first 20 minutes and next hour against Kiev,” he said. “It is a real psychological aspect of how you can enjoy your football, how you can be free, how you can have a quick tempo rather than having an approach of feeling too much responsibility.
“We know the angles that we produce, we know how to play teams in between the lines. We pressed with a lot more urgency and belief against Kiev (in the second half), we didn’t get caught in our pressing. Everything was in better sync.
“Our possession always has to be with tempo and always with a forward pass. We have ways of keeping possession and the ball but the first 20 minutes was a very pedestrian and slow way of playing and the next 60 minutes shows how effective and strong we are even against a team who put 10 bodies behind the ball.
“We still scored, created chances and could’ve won the game with a bigger margin. You can see it’s not a tactical aspect. It’s not a way of setting the team up. It’s the execution of that performance, and that’s a mental approach.
“The moment we overcome that we will be a strong team again because the talent is there.”
Martinez bullish after Stoke defeat [AMBIENT]
The talent is undoubtedly there, though whether Martinez will sanction the tweak that keeps his side on the front foot by encouraging a 30-yard forward pass as opposed to a five-yard one remains to be seen.
John Terry used to regard Goodison Park as his least favourite away ground because Everton were horrible to play against: uncompromising, but at the same time capable of clicking through the gears, and backed by a crowd that gave their heroes an edge.
In many respects the reverse is now true.
“We hit rock bottom with our result at Stoke,” said Martinez, of the 2-0 reverse in their last game. “It's not a place to fear any more in the league.
“We have 30 points to play for. So I think it's a fresh start and a new league within a league.”
Across Stanley Park at Liverpool, Brendan Rodgers has strengthened his standing, both inside the dressing room and the boardroom, by managing the team out of a worrying slump and managing personalities.
Martinez has had injuries and misfortune, but the lingering impression is that he has not done enough to force change and so doubts as to whether last season was the blip have become inflamed and tensions behind the scenes have festered.
Everton have always denied Sylvain Distin was effectively suspended for standing up to the manager and assistant Graeme Jones back at the start of October, but, equally, the rumours refuse to go away. A popular member of the squad being ostracised for speaking his mind represents a mistake which undermines.
At 37, the likelihood is Distin would have left Everton anyway this summer when his contract expires. It is unclear as the club looks to extricate itself from the current mess who, and how many, will follow.
Martinez must make sure he is not one of them.
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