Another weekend, another depressing result. The reaction to the defeat to Arsenal has been somewhat divisive, with many jumping to the defence of Roberto Martinez, whilst for others it appears enough is enough. Personally, I don’t want to see him lose his job, and the truth is he won’t be going anywhere any time soon anyway. He signed a 5 year deal last summer, and who on earth would you get in to replace him? Howard Kendall part 4?
That said, I thought the way we approached the game on Sunday was woefully negative. I queried before the game whether he would go with 3 holding midfielders, and that turned out to be the case. As we have seen before, that set up severely limits our attacking capabilities. Some have claimed that we played quite well, and were “in control”. This isn’t something I subscribe to. The tempo and intensity of our play was slow, some of the passing was shocking and the movement up top was non-existent. For all our possession, we failed to cause Arsenal too many problems. Some have pointed to the fact we never win at the Emirates, but Arsenal themselves were also woeful, as they had been in midweek, and this only adds to the frustration.
Some will say if we had gone out all guns blazing and lost 3-0 Martinez would have been branded naïve, and they would probably be right. But the manager has also prided himself on us being able to go anywhere and “be ourselves”. I don’t believe we were ourselves on Sunday. It was boring, negative and predictable. Everything we weren’t last season. Of course, it’s not all the manager’s fault. As I mentioned, some of the passing was awful, and there was very little movement from the front players. But I can’t help but feel that this slow build up is stifling the likes of Mirallas, Barkley and Lukaku who I believe are their best when the ball is played quickly. I’m not advocating hoof ball, far from it. But there needs to be more purpose to the way we move ball in order to create opportunities in front of goal, and that needs to start on Wednesday at Stoke City.
Some have claimed Stoke are much more pleasing on the eye now under Mark Hughes than they were under Tony Pulis, which isn’t really saying much. They’re still grim, and they’re still difficult to beat, especially at the Britannia. Yakubu scored the last time we beat Stoke at their own place. Of course, Stoke have already beaten us on Boxing Day, in one of grimmest Goodison outings this season. The man who did the damage that day, Bojan, won’t feature this time round. Nevertheless, the Spaniard’s absence in recent weeks hasn’t affected them too much, as they sit 4th in the form table. As well as Bojan, Stephen Ireland seems to be the only other notable absentee for the Potters. Crouch is obviously their biggest goal threat, but Diouf, Moses and Walters could also cause problems.
From our point of view, it’s likely to be the same squad as the weekend, with Baines facing a late fitness test. As a result, I wouldn’t expect many changes in terms of the starting line-up. Naismith may come in for Besic, Lennon in for Mirallas maybe. Martinez seems to have a real issue playing two wide players, even though the only league game we have won in 2015 is when we played Mirallas and McGeady out wide. I don’t know what has to happen for him play both Mirallas and Lennon. As an opposing defence, I certainly wouldn’t fancy going up against them both. Perhaps he doesn’t trust them both defensively, but we’re still conceding goals anyway, and again the last time we played to wide players we kept a clean sheet at Palace.
One other thing to note from the weekend was Garbutt’s deliveries from set pieces, which were excellent. Sadly no one seems to fancy attacking them. We had numerous balls into the box but I can’t remember one which wasn’t met with an Arsenal clearance. It’s quite clear we don’t work on set pieces at all, which personally I think is ridiculous. Yes, you shouldn’t be reliant on them for goals, but to be completely ineffective from them when they are such a big part of the game is lunacy. We have to utilise these better.
I always try to finish these on a positive, but to be honest, if we approach this game in the same way as we have done in previous weeks, then quite simply, we won’t get anything. I don’t think Roberto is an idiot, he must surely realise what was wrong at the weekend, and although there’s only a few days between the games, fingers crossed he can rectify it in time for Stoke, because, as Luke Garbutt said, “We just need to win on Wednesday, it is simple as that.”
