Monthly Archives: March 2014

Everton went into last weekend’s FA Cup match with Arsenal looking to progress to the semifinals of the competition, but they are left humiliated after a 4-1 thrashing by the gunners.

Even though they had drawn the previous league meeting at the Emirates stadium 1-1, this match was over as a contest long before the final whistle. Olivier Giroud scored two goals, while Romelu Lukaku provided the only consolation for Everton. On the positive side, this defeat means that the club can return to focus on the league, where they have not been doing well in recent months.

Everton has slipped to nine points behind the top four places with only 11 matches left in the season. Finishing in a European place remains the ultimate motto for the team and Martinez says that the club will return to this mode with the weekend’s match against Cardiff. After struggling for form since the arrival of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, the club managed to get its first win in a long time last weekend. Hence, they will be confident coming to Goodison Park, but Martinez is hoping to get the better of the relegation threatened team.

He says that it is imperative that the team enjoys its football in the remainder of the campaign.

“There’s massive competition for places in the dressing room and we all know we’ve got six demanding games at Goodison. That’s something we really enjoy, playing in front of our fans and making sure everyone is proud of what we do at Everton. We’ve got 33 points to fight for and it’s an essential moment of the season. We need to get back to enjoying our football at Goodison and being together, as we always are,” said Martinez.

Everton have had just two wins in the last five league matches.

Everton brought in Aiden McGeady from Spartak Moscow during the January transfer window, but the 27-year-old has only started featuring for the team. Roberto Martinez has revealed that the winger has suffered from a serious loss of fitness after being frozen out of the first-team reckoning at Russian club.

He says that McGeady will be one of the best players in the Premier league once his form and fitness returns. He expects the player to be ready for 90 minutes in the next few weeks, as he has been preparing with extremely hard in training.

Martinez says that the player has immense technical ability to be able to change the style of play at Everton. After being defensively strong under David Moyes, the club has become one of the best passing teams in the division after the arrival of Martinez. They have been praised for the way they approach matches. Martinez says that McGeady has settled extremely well after a difficult time in Russia.

The Spaniard will be hoping that McGeady’s arrival coincides with an improvement in form for Everton, who have been slowly slipping down the table in recent weeks.
They have just one win in the last five matches and it has seen them slip to seventh in the table.

“Aiden has been putting in extra work, working really hard. It’s about him setting certain levels to make sure he’s fully fit soon. I think when he is he’ll take us to a different level in terms of our forward play. With Aiden we had to start from scratch in terms of building up the fitness levels that he needed and we can already see he’s a phenomenal player. He has great technical ability and it’s important to get him feeling sharp so he can show that,” said Martinez.