A mediocre start to the Premier League season has questions being asked of Roberto Martinez for the first time in his managerial career.
Everton were magnificent for much of last season — their first under Martinez’s charge after a decade with David Moyes. It seemed that the former Wigan boss, who’d been relegated the year before but won the FA Cup against all odds, was a perfect fit for the blue half of Liverpool — adding an attacking flair and ambition to the solid defensive structure that had always been the strength of Moyes’ Everton.
I remember watching them at Arsenal, at home to Manchester United and early on against Newcastle and they were absolutely breath-taking. Martinez has always placed great importance of the attacking threat that can be provided by overlapping full backs and having inherited Leighton Baines and Seamus Coleman his style finally had high quality players to carry it out. They could have made the Champions League, but for a late slip at home to an in-form Crystal Palace side.
However their first problem came in the summer when they had to spend the thick end of £30m — massive money for a club without a new stadium or a mega-rich owner — just to stand still. Romelu Lukaku and Gareth Barry had been key figures for the Toffees in 2013/14 but had only been on loan — the vast majority of Martinez’s transfer budget for the summer had to be spent keeping the team as it was by signing those two, rather than kicking on and improving it.
The success of the season before brought Europa League football, blessedly not seen as a burden or a curse for a club that hasn’t had many trips to the continent during the last 20 years, but still a notorious problem for Premier League sides, particularly those with small squads. The team has settled well to the European task, winning three and drawing two of the six group matches including handsome victories against Wolfsburg and Lille on the way. But the travelling Thursday and playing again on Sunday aspect of the horribly bloated, totally ruined, secondary European comp has been more problematic — Everton have lost three and drawn one of the five league games that have taken place directly after a European game so far this season. The sixth comes on Monday against QPR.
They have suffered from injuries which they largely steered clear of last season. Most damagingly, young England prospect John Stones has been missing since the first weekend in October meaning there has been no rest for an ageing centre-half pairing of Phil Jagielka, who also seems to be suffering from some form of World Cup hangover, and Sylvain Distin, who really is looking every day of his 36 years at the moment. Even the French defender admitted himself, when subjected to some abuse about his form, ability and age by Everton supporters on The Twitter, that he was "all Everton could afford” at the moment. Ross Barkley missed the first two months.
So plenty by way of mitigation, but a league record that so far shows just four victories from 15 games (the same as third bottom QPR) has started to raise a few questions, specifically about Martinez who has previously been seen as untouchable by the media in this country. Everton were booed off by the Goodison Park crowd after a recent home draw with Hull.
Teams know that Everton will play 4-2-3-1, they know that Gareth Barry will drop very deep from the holding two to receive the ball short from the goalkeeper, they know the full backs will bomb on to join the attack, and they’re wise to it. Teams are pressing Everton higher up the field, not allowing the play to be dictated by a deep lying midfield player. They’re also scoring goals against the Toffees with alarming frequency — 23 conceded so far including 13 in just seven home matches is fast approaching last season’s overall total of 39 against.
Defensively, Martinez’s teams have often been suspect. Relying on full backs flying forwards inevitably exposes centre halves and his Wigan side shipped 73 when it was relegated in 2013/13 — some 13 more, even, than the lousy QPR team we all suffered that year which finished dead last. There is a school of thought that says Martinez inherited a sound defensive unit from Moyes, hence the success last season, and that’s now falling apart under his growing influence as time goes on.
His style of play is also no longer as revolutionary as it once was. Back in the day, managers would go and watch his Swansea team and change their whole thinking about how football in this country should be played. Ian Holloway described the epiphany he had watching the Swans under Martinez while searching for a new job himself — realising that the English mentality of knocking a channel ball and turning a full back around should be replaced by an out-ball played width ways across the pitch to a winger in space on the far side.
But can he innovate again? Is he adaptable? With teams like Southampton, Tottenham now under Mauricio Pochettino, and others all emphasising the importance of pressing high up the field, what are Everton doing to combat that? Does Martinez have a plan B?
A brilliant manager enduring a sticky run because of injuries, fixture backlog and lack of spending power relative to rivals? I suspect so. Or a mini-Arsene Wenger — once a creative innovator, now stubbornly stuck in his ways? A question to probably be answered more fully in a few months’ time, with fewer European games to play and focus switched back exclusively to the Premier League.
Everton would fly at teams last season and were terrific to watch. Against Spurs, they were slow and ponderous with possession. Tottenham, as we know, press very high up the field and that seemed to suffocate the Toffees. So many times an Everton player would have the ball in a non-threatening area and take several touches while looking up and wide for options that had already been cut off to him. In the end, more often than not, the ball went backwards as a result.
They weren’t helped either by having Samuel Eto’o — ostensibly a striker — playing on the right of the three supporting attackers behind a lone striker because has natural inclination to move centrally and towards the goal narrowed the attack and crowded the edge of the penalty box where the likes of Ross Barkley can make a killing if they can find space.
The back four was exposed badly in two ways. Firstly, by runners getting in behind Gareth Barry and Muhamed Besic the two holding central midfield players, into space in front of the back four. Secondly by runners in behind, with Jagielka and Distin betraying their advancing years and declining pace by playing a risky, high offside trap at times.
Tottenham dropped the hard working Harry Kane back into midfield when out of possession, forming a five, with the back four pressed high up the field to squeeze the space available for Everton to play in. It worked a treat. It was a similar story a week later at Man City where, even when chasing an equaliser in injury time, Everton were slow and laboured with the ball, unable to get it into Lukaku’s feet and often reduced to knocking a backwards or square pass, keeping possession for the sake of completing another pass rather than to have any sort of damaging effect on the opposition.
Unfortunately for QPR all this high-pressing, high tempo stuff that has been causing Everton problems of late is the exact opposite of how Rangers have played their away games so far this season — dropping deep, sitting off, allowing space. Line up and play as they did at Swansea in the last away match and QPR will almost certainly find themselves beaten by a similar scoreline in almost identical fashion.
To summarise: Everton's weaknesses are exploited by teams that press them high up the field; one of QPR's big problems away from home has been not pressing teams high up the field.
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