Would you classify Everton as a big club? They aren’t acting like one.
Would you say Everton have standards befitting their rich history? They aren’t showing them.
Can Roberto Martinez honestly say he deserves to be manager of Everton Football Club? If he can, on what grounds?
Tonight was a damning indictment of everything that is wrong with the club right now. There’s no discipline or structure in place, players that have been lauded for their talent and potential are severely declining at an alarming rate and the attacking play that was seen as the Catalonian’s saving grace has died a slow death.
The Blues have scored two goals in their last six league games, and their last shot at Anfield came in the eighteenth minute.
It’s hard to decipher what the plan was out there. Why were Everton sitting back and relying on a porous defence to keep out a side that had scored 10 goals in their last three games? How can they be so inept at dealing with crosses?
The in-game management is non-existent and the same mistakes are rearing their ugly head time and time again, Martinez’s finger is so far off the pulse of his side it’s untrue.
Ramiro Funes Mori’s red card typified the lack of discipline that is coursing through this Everton side. It was a disgraceful ‘challenge’, if you can call it that, and his reaction straight afterwards was bizarre. The Argentine passionately grabbed the Everton badge as he trudged to the dressing room. Does he think that phoned in gesture will further endear himself to Evertonians, along with that awful tackle?
Well done, Ramiro, you’ve just thrown away your chance of playing at Wembley and have let your teammates and fans down in the process.
John Stones was worryingly poor. Comfortably beaten for the first goal and more than culpable for the third, the young Englishman is a far cry from the defender Evertonians used to adore.
Every aspect of his game has worsened over the last few months, but it’s not his fault. He’s only 21, a baby in centre-half terms, and he was always going to make a few mistakes.
But he’s not learning from his errors, they’re not being coaxed out of him in training and there’s no way he’ll ever be the centre-half his potential could allow him to become if he’s not given the proper guidance and discipline.
Funes Mori’s idiocy and Stones’ worrying performances are issues Everton need to quickly resolve, but the crux of Everton’s pathetic hopelessness is Roberto Martinez.
The Catalonian was impressive in his first season and was given the benefit of the doubt in his second, but he can have absolutely no excuses now. From the incessant codswallop he spouts in press conferences to the dull, inane, naive tactics he implements on the side, Martinez has taken the club down to his low, low level.
He has been praised for building a talented squad, but he’s also the reason why it will inevitably crumble, break up and never realise it’s full potential.
He has shirked responsibility at almost every given opportunity and has infuriated Evertonians, with some now numb to the current state of affairs. He’s removed the fight, fitness and spirit from Goodison Park and replaced it with jargon, confusion and fracture.
Nobody knows what will happen tomorrow or in the summer, but one thing’s for sure – Everton must rid themselves of Roberto Martinez.
