Everton finished fifth last season with 72 points, beating Arsenal and Chelsea at home and gaining all the plaudits for their attractive football under Roberto Martinez.

This season the Toffees have just 21pts from 20 League matches, which projects to just 40 across the season, the figure usually used to just about ensure relegation survival.

Everton excited the UEFA Cup, League Cup and most recently the FA Cup on a dramatic penalty shoot-out to West Ham that went down to the goalkeepers.

The Toffees have already lost as many games both at home and away as they did in the entirety of last season.

To say this season has been a disappointment is a huge understatement. What’s gone wrong?

Blaming Roberto Martinez alone is far too simplistic. Last season raised expectations hugely and it is unfair to hang him on his own success. He has not become a bad manager overnight.

Martinez worked wonders on tiny budgets to keep Wigan in the Premier League for as long as he did, before leading them to unexpected FA Cup triumph as the inevitable relegation finally happened.

In an era where managers are too often not given enough time, Martinez is now fortunate to have a patient chairman who understands the game in Bill Kenwright.

Everton are struggling for various reasons, though Martinez has more than earnt the rest of this season to try and recover the Toffees form.

One thing Martinez must do is best utilise key striker Romelu Lukaku in getting the ex-Chelsea man into places where he can isolate defenders to utilise his pace and power.

This regularly featured in the recent FA Cup tie against West Ham, showing Martinez recognises the problem and is succeeding in addressing it.

Everton are still dominating possessing and keeping the ball as well as the other top sides, they just need to get Lukaku back to his form of last season, where in 31 games he scored 15 goals.

Martinez is an astute and intelligent tactician who is more than capable of helping his side re-find that killer instinct to reward their excellent and patient build-up play.

Losing Samuel Eto’o, as Everton look to set to in this January transfer window will hurt but with Naismith, Lukaku, Osman and Barkley even have plenty to offer going forward.

That neglects to mention their excellent marauding full-backs – Leighton Baines now has 41 assists, a Premier League record for a defender.

The other major problem is the defence, this season they have conceded 1.62 goals per game in the Premier League – it was just 1.03 last season.

This was lower than any of the previous four years under David Moyes, a manger known for his defensive solidity.

Martinez is struggling to address this problem, evident when trying senior player Gareth Barry as a third centre-half in a 2-0 loss to Hull on January 1st 2015. Barry lacks pace and so to leave him as the last line of defence, as he was for both goals, was suicide.

Antolin Alcaraz has not proven himself having  come from  a Wigan side that conceded a lot of goals, whilst at 37 age appears to finally been catching up with Sylvain Distin.

Everton have won just 17% of League games when Distin has played compared to 60% last season, whilst John Stones’ injury struggles have added to the problems.

However, in Leighton Baines and Seamus Coleman Everton have two full-backs that are the envy of almost every side in the Premier League.

With the signing of a solid centre-half to partner Phil Jagielka, and the ministry of defence himself Tim Howard in goal, Everton have a defence talented enough to turn things around.

Everton have made 11 individual errors leading to goals this season, the most of any team in Europe’s top five major leagues, indicating the players  must hold as much,  if not more responsibility than Roberto Martinez.

The Everton manager is still the right man for the job despite their struggles, and has earnt the chance to turn the Toffees around – he already has proven expertise of managing in adversity at Wigan.

Before calling for Martinez’s head Everton fan should consider who a realistic replacement might be and the calibre of the manager they have, then they might change their mind.

In the meantime, Martinez needs a few gritty and ugly wins to ensure the managerial revolver that the UK media carry with them is turned towards another poor soul.

Ironically, summoning the spirit of David Moyes might be rather handy.

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