The School of Science is back

This was supposed to be a difficult season for Everton according to the media and quite a lot of Everton supporters.  Whenever a new manager comes into a team the transitional period where the players adapt to a new style and approach can often take well over a season to come to fruition and even then, sometimes it doesn’t happen.

David Moyes had built a very good squad who were difficult to beat, he had transformed relegation fodder into a team competing for the top 6 in the Premier League.  We were stable.  We were steady.  After 11 years he departed and in stepped the new man – Spanish Bob as the Wigan Athletic fans called him.

Roberto Martinez was a man that had just taken Wigan down into the championship, but had masterminded an FA Cup victory over Everton that saw the blues demolished by tactics.  This was a Wigan side with no money, but a really nice style.

How would this steady Everton side be able to cope with the free flowing passing football that Martinez liked to work.  The first 3 matches looked ominous with 3 draws on the bounce, but Martinez positive outlook has been brilliant and the players are fully bought in to what he is trying to achieve.

Gone is the negativity, all the talk that comes out is positive and this feeds back through the team and onto the supporters.  It has been hard to get the negativity out of our mindset, we were used to our teams going to the top 4 teams and playing not to lose.  To actually set up to win and pull that off is almost mindblowing, it’s like going back to the good old days.

I wrote an article around Christmas time when we were suffering a spate of injuries and the team was decimated.  At the same time West Ham, under Sam Allardyce, were suffering from the same thing and all that came out from the West Ham camp was how we miss this player or miss that player, how we would be a different team if we had Andy Carroll.    The Martinez approach was different, instead he focussed on the players coming in and what their strengths were and his approach paid off – The likes of John Stones and Antolin Alcaraz came in and performed well despite not having much first team football under their belt this season.  Positive thinking has helped Everton all season.

Martinez is keen to embrace the history of this great club, he is not only a football fan but a football scholar too.  He has old fashioned values with a fresh new contemporary outlook on how the game should be played, he combines solid hard work and worth ethic with modern tactics designed to pinpoint the weaknesses in opposition, his focus is on embracing attack while at the same time staying solid.  He is keen to bring back the school of science and he should be widely applauded.

Martinez has been a breath of fresh air to a club that has failed for the best part of the last 20 years.  This is a club that has won more league titles that Manchester City, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur combined – The pundits forget this, but the Everton supporters don’t.  We EXPECT to be winning titles, not getting in the top 10.  Martinez has brought a brand of football and positivity that has been lacking for a long time and as the club are discussing new stadia and have record revenues coming in, it is about time that we start to challenge again.  The sky 4 may have their noses put out of joint by plucky little Everton, but we are no longer playing the Under Dog card.

All together now “Roberto had a dream………………….”