Three defeats in a row. More injuries to key players. Confidence at rock bottom with tactics seemingly plucked from a cracker. This is not going well.
So four games ago I wrote an article predicting our next five games. First of all I thought we’d get 6 points, but I changed it to 8 points as I thought that I should be more confident of beating Stoke. We lost as opposed to drawing (my original prediction). We can now only get a total of 6 points from 15 if we beat Hull. That’s “if”.
What is going wrong? Well the honeymoon is over for the overly-positive Spaniard that’s for sure. Amid rumours of him falling out with players (that Besic one isn’t going away for starters) he seems to be doing a “Rodgers”. i.e. try players in different positions and hope it comes off. Although saying that, after striking gold with the line-up for the QPR game he seems to have decided to tinkered with it since.
There are some that Martinez will not tinker with though. Gareth Barry (last term’s standout player at times) has been awful this season. A walking yellow card waiting to happen and not good in possession. Whilst Martinez can’t help some of the enforced changes such as in defence, he can sort this out with the players at his disposal.
Teams have found us out – simply let Everton pass the ball around, kick them a bit (and watch as the EFC players don’t complain) and then nick a goal from a set piece. Easy. 2 points we have from Hull, Palace, Swansea and Stoke at home this season. Four defeats in a row on the road. Not good enough.
So what about the players themselves? Well the evidence is sadly there that they are not good enough to take on the system that Martinez wants to play. The most number of errors leading to goals is the title that Everton fans thought their team might get last season, not this one. With a season under their belts you’d thought that the team would be more comfortable with the ball, not scared of it. Or just awful with it.
Add to that the fact that the Everton of last season pressured teams high up the field as well as playing exciting football (and getting away with errors made a lot of the time!) – this season we just don’t do that.
The stats again tell us that we are the second-worst team at doing it this season. So what has changed? It’s very odd that we now seem to want to play dangerous tika-taka football as if we’re Barcelona but with very average players. With the players we have we need to unleash the plan B. Any plan B. Kick it long for Romelu like we need for the love of god please. Even the Walter Smith years were more interesting than this.
Strange thing is that Everton have started brightly in many games and then seem to simply give up once they are put under pressure. They have lost 15 points from winning positions this season, winning just two.
Of course there are other factors that this season has thrown up. Pure bad luck. And terrible refereeing. The decisions over the Xmas period have been sickening at times.
The roll-call of players that should have been sent off against Everton this season is long: Fernando, Mangala, Gomez, Wickham, Adam, Walters on Boxing Day and yesterday it was Cisse’s turn to be a very lucky individual. The elbow on Coleman just seconds before the same man equalized was just typical as I say.
So will this bad luck actually start to even itself out? Will we suddenly get a break against Hull and then against West Ham in the cup?
You know what? I think we need it.