Football Musings

There was a time, not long ago, when Roberto Martinez was king of the world. Martinez could do no wrong; never mind his Wigan side were relegated just three days after their impressive FA Cup final triumph over Manchester City, he walked into the vacant managerial position at Everton - one of the best jobs in English football despite the obvious blot in his copybook. The jobs Martinez has been linked with in the past (Arsenal, the England national team) was proof of how much he was revered by many in the press, the stands and also by his peers. In a country where there exists many a straw man argument about a lack of opportunities for homegrown managers, Martinez never felt the ire of the press; instead he was a darling of Fleet Street. Of course it helps that he had spent more than a decade in the United Kingdom, is married to a Scot, and is a self-confessed Anglophile. There was an air of elegance about him, an excellent sartorial taste that meant he wouldn’t look out of place on Wall Street like a well groomed privately educated stockbroker.

That, however, was three years ago. The intervening period at Everton did Martinez’s reputation a lot of harm, and while his starry-eyed optimism never waned even when it was obvious things were spiralling out of control at Goodison Park, it was clear that his positive outlook was in stark contrast to his side’s underwhelming performances on the pitch. The only thing surprising about his sack at the end of last term was that he lasted until the penultimate week of the season; such was the disappointment and disillusionment of fans with the Toffees’ terrible year.

Unemployed and out of the news, Martinez’s stock has fallen to its lowest in his managerial career, but if media reports are anything to go by, everyone’s favourite Spanish manager is set to take over as the new Hull City boss following Steve Bruce’s resignation last week. The other candidate for the role – Mike Phelan – is boring, and fairly uninspiring. Martinez appears a shoe-in for the gig, in what is a drastic fall from being touted as a probable Arsene Wenger replacement to managing Hull. If Martinez does indeed take over at the KC Stadium, however, it would be the toughest task of his managerial career.

Hull are, at 5/6, the bookmakers’ favourites to be relegated next season, and Martinez’s remit would be to keep the Tigers up. Ordinarily, this should be an easy task for a manager of his pedigree regardless of last season’s turmoil at Everton, but Hull are no ordinary club.

Hull are a deeply fractured club where relations between fans and owner have strained badly to the point of mutual distrust. Assem Allam, the owner, has made no secret of his desire to sell the club, and although the departed Bruce was a staunch defender of Allam, the ex-Manchester United captain was said to have grown frustrated over a lack of summer signings. With the start of the 2016/17 Premier League season only a couple of weeks away, Hull (with Sunderland) are the only side yet to strengthen their squad this summer. To further complicate matters, the Allam is seriously ill and the club is being run by his son, Ehab, who is actively looking to sell, and is currently in talks with a couple of consortiums who are interested in buying the east Yorkshire side.

Martinez will walk into a club with a squad seriously decimated by injuries and only 13 fit senior players going into the new season. Michael Dawson, Moses Odubajo, Allan McGregor and Alex Bruce have suffered long-term injuries, meanwhile Chuba Akpom and Isaac Hayden, both of whom were instrumental in Hull’s promotion push, have since returned to their parent club Arsenal. Never mind bringing a knife to a gunfight, Martinez is entering a warzone with no weapons and one hand tied behind his back.

With Hull clearly a club in bad shape, Martinez also faces a huge test of the methods he has consistently stuck with, despite some woeful results, most recently at Everton.

The 43-year-old is an aesthete, a true believer in playing football as commanded by the laws of Johan Cruyff. Martinez is also a huge fan of Cruyff’s most accomplished disciple, Pep Guardiola, and upon the announcement of the former Bayern manager’s appointment by Manchester City back in February, he spoke in glowing terms of his compatriot. Martinez’s football philosophy comes from the same place as Guardiola’s – geographically and philosophically. That, unfortunately, is where the similarities end.

The most persistent flaw of Martinez’s idea of football utopia is his side’s chronic inability to defend or maintain any form of defensive discipline. At some points last season, it was tempting to ask if Everton’s aversion to defending stemmed from sheer arrogance on Martinez’s part that a gung-ho attack was all that was required to win games, or perhaps it was just down to a simple case of ineptitude.

The numbers for Martinez-tutored sides make for grim reading: last season Everton conceded 55 goals, joint worst with Stoke City among the league’s top 15 sides. In 2014/15, the Goodison side shipped in 50 goals, one less than relegated Hull that season. Going further back, Wigan conceded 79, 61, 62 and 73 goals, in the four seasons Martinez was in charge. This isn’t a passing fad; it’s a long-term blind spot he seemingly has no answers for.

At Hull where beating the drop is the end goal, Martinez’s attacking philosophy will jar with the reality of his new surroundings. As Blackpool found out in 2009/10, there are no extra points for attacking verve and entertainment if they don’t translate to points on the board. Whether Martinez adopts a slightly more pragmatic approach will surely play a role in the Tigers’ bid to stave off relegation next term.

This is a crucial crossroads in Martinez’s career. The Spaniard has a chance to prove that the last couple of seasons were nothing more than bumps on his ultimate quest to manage at a truly big club. Failure at Hull could set him on the path to mid-table obscurity, a fire fighter manager for middling clubs. It is, therefore, slightly ironic that to succeed at Hull, Martinez needs to compromise the principles he has held for the entirety of his managerial career.