Roberto Martinez is hopeful that defender John Stones will be able to climb out from his poor run and start to inspire the team in the rest of the campaign.

Stones was one of the talked about names in the summer after he was subjected to transfer interest from Chelsea. The Premier League champions were ready to play in excess of £ 30 million for the 21-year-old. This would have represented a massive profit on a £ 4 million investment for Everton, but they chose to retain him. This proved to be the right decision in the first half of the campaign whenStones was almost impenetrable.

This situation, however, changed dramatically in the second half whenStones’ was seen as a culprit for the club’s poor defensive record this season. The England star missed the entire month of February action. Now, he has been recalled back to the starting line-up and Martinez says that the timeout on the sidelines has helped Stones recover his energy. He expects much better performances from the youngster in the coming weeks. Everton still have a chance to qualify for the Europa League, but it has been moved to an outside chance. The club are just below the likes of Chelsea and West Brom in the league table.

“I thought when he came out he looked refreshed, he looked full of energy, like the player he looked like at the start of the season. I think he has come back with a real focus and a real intent of performing well and I think the second half performance, the back three had to do everything, defend, get on the ball and try to play forward and I thought it was an all-action performance. He reacted well and anticipated things very well,” said Martinez after the 2-0 loss against Arsenal.

Roberto Martinez’ position at Everton went from bad to worse after his team were beaten 1-0 by West Brom at Goodison Park.

This was the second league loss in five matches for a team that has top four ambitions. Martinez spent a lot of money recruiting players like Romelu Lukaku on a permanent basis, but inconsistency is starting to hurt in the team’s ability to make a major impact in the Premier league. The recent defeat saw them slip into the bottom half of the league while there is a real danger of the club being sucked into the relegation zone if things do not improve soon.

Martinez used the terms like unlucky and criticised the opponents for time wasting tactics, but he will be aware that it is his job that will be on the line. The club are in advanced talks over a potential ownership change, which will put further pressure on the Spaniard. If the potential £ 200 million change in ownership goes through, the new American owners will want to have their own man in charge of the club. Martinez has had an up-and-down time at Everton. Despite managing to successfully go beyond the David Moyes era, he has struggled in terms of consistency and this is not good for a team with European ambitions.

“Everything that could go wrong went wrong. I don’t care about budgets at other places. You need to know how to get there and have the strategy. I want to push the football club into more than what people would expect. The squad we have is a squad to dream of. Until you get 40 points and beyond, every club will be looking over their shoulders. I don’t care what anyone says,” said Martinez about the probability of relegation threat in the coming weeks.

Aston Villa are now becoming certainties for relegation after being cut adrift at the bottom of the table.

This is making life extremely difficult for Frenchman Remi Garde, who was appointed as the replacement for Tim Sherwood a few months ago.Garde has been looking to strengthen the team in the January transfer window, but Villa have been unable to make much inroads so far.Garde has opened up on the situation by claiming that several players have already turned down to the club since they are not confident about Villa retaining the league status.

Aston Villa are one of the top clubs to have avoided relegation, but they have been in a dogfight over the last couple of years. This finally appears to be the season where they go down into the Championship. The team have secured only eight points from the 20 league games so far. They already need to make up more than 10 points just to stay in touch with the likes of Newcastle United and Sunderland. Villa did make a lot of signings in the summer under Sherwood, but most of the names have failed to shine at Villa Park. The club’s recent disappointment came in the FA Cup when they were held to a 1-1 draw by Wycombe.

“Attracting players in the situation we are in is not an easy task because players are not only attracted by money, as many people think.They also care about the project that we present to them. I have to say that if we had been in a better position, I would probably already have signed at least two players. It is very frustrating but I came into a situation that I knew could be uncomfortable to me for signing players,” said Garde, who has been linked with Loic Remy and Mathieu Debuchy.

Everton’s failure to win for a third successive game has left the team 10th in the table.

The latest disappointment came in the match against Norwich. Even though striker Romelu Lukaku score yet again in the Premier League, the club were unable to take advantage of his goals. Conceding just into the second-half from a set piece meant that Everton have dropped two more points. Only a few weeks ago, things look extremely promising for Everton and Roberto Martinez. They looked like being capable of finishing in the European spots.

Martinez says that the team will have to different set pieces a lot better if they are to finish in the top six at the very least. The poor defensive record of the team from the set pieces is rather surprising given that they have some of the best headers of the ball. John Stones was kept at the club under huge pressure from Chelsea and he was delivering very well at the start of the season. However, central defenders have tended to go on a poor run of form and this appears to be one of them. Stones is likely to once again come under interest from Chelsea in January. If his poor form continues, Everton may consider selling him.

“We have been a really strong defensive unit but we have let ourselves be a little soft in defensive work from dead-ball situations.It is something that we want to fix and be better. It is an area of any game that is going to be very important in determining the scoreline.We have had a lot of injuries throughout the season as any team has but I thought we coped really, really well. The young players showed a terrific attitude and personality to step in and do a really good job,” said Martinez.

Joel Robles had a belter of a day versus Norwich City earlier this week as he showed wonderful goalkeeping skills in the shootouts in the Round of 16 of Capital One Cup to ensure Everton’s advancement to the next stage of the tournament, but, those heroics don’t seem to be enough to make him the no. 1 Toffees goalie.

According to Roberto Martinez, it’s Tim Howard who would continue to be at the top of the pecking order despite not being at his best in the games that he has played this season.

Martinez reckons competition within the squad is not an unhealthy thing at all, but, it’s also important that the players are provided a bit of security and they don’t always have to play with the fear that their mistakes are going to cost them their spot in the XI.

Speaking prior to this weekend’s game, Martinez said, “Joel put on a fine, fine show today, but, it does not seal his place in the XI. In fact, nobody is a guaranteed pick at the moment as far as we are concerned. People have to show they are good enough and deserve to start.”

“Yes, you want tussle between the players for the same spot. It’s good, but, as a manager, you have to ensure you don’t drop somebody at him making a couple of mistakes here and there. You don’t want to create a feeling of insecurity in the group and see guys coming in and putting the blame on one another. Blame game is always something that should be kept away.”

Everton is not sitting pretty in the Premier League table presently. They are in the bottom half, at the 11th position to be precise with just 13 points.

Everton continued their dominant Premier League form after managing a 0-0 draw with Swansea at the Liberty Stadium.

Compared with the poor form of last season when Everton did not become like a proper team until midway through the campaign, Roberto Martinez has focused on making the team extremely hard to beat. This nature saw them only narrowly suffered a defeat against table leaders Manchester City at Goodison Park in the previous match. They have followed that up with a draw against Swansea, who have been one of the better performing teams in the league this season.

Even though the game finished as a draw, Everton will be disappointed with the outcome since they performed exceptionally well to at least get something more than just a point. The blues were especially dominant in the second half and it brought out some last-ditch defending from the home team in order to keep Everton out. For the upcoming games, though, Everton will be without Belgian international Kevin Mirallas after he was given a straight red card just two minutes after coming on as a substitute. Martinez refused to criticiseMirallas’ lack of professionalism. Instead, he tried to focus on aspects like the player being enthusiastic to retrieve the ball.

“I was very, very pleased with the performance. I thought the first half was a bit different to the second.The first one we were settling in, we defended really well and I think we stopped Swansea from having their normal rhythm and then in the second half we had a real intent. The amount of clear cut chances we created, it is not normal for us not to take any of those. Overall, the performance was terrific. At times, Swansea defended extremely well, put their bodies on the line,” said the Everton boss.

After being uncertain about Wayne Rooney’s qualities at the start of the season, manager Louis Van Gaal appears to be extremely happy with the England international.

Rooney was fighting with Robin van Persie for the position of being captain for Manchester United. It was widely thought that van Persie would win the duel due to his excellent relationship with Van Gaal. Yet, 12 months is a long time in football and it has been proven once again since van Persie appears to be heading towards exit while Rooney’s position at the club has been strengthened even further.

Rooney has been playing in his preferred striking role over the last few months, while he has also excelled as a captain. His versatility has also allowed Van Gaal to be flexible with his positioning during times of injury crisis. The Dutchman has awarded glowing praise upon Rooney ahead of the match with Hull City on the final day of the 2014-15 league campaign. He says that United can be the best team in the world if they have 10 players with a similar attitude like Rooney. Van Gaal has also managed to get the best out of players like Ashley Young, who were on the verge of an exit before he came to the club.

“He’s a very good captain, I am very proud. I don’t have any disappointment this year with him. He’s great in the dressing room and an example on the training pitch.When we play a match he shall always fight until the end. He has played a lot of positions for me, without complaining.That’s also what I like in Ashley Young, who has also played a lot of positions at a high level. I like multi-functional players as they offer you more that the team needs than other players,” said Van Gaal.

The England national football team made an early exit from the 2014 World Cup as the team of Roy Hodgson failed to win a single match in the group stages and was knocked out surprisingly fast.

The national side has appeared to be recovering from their underwhelming streak of performances at the international stage as Roy Hodgson and his squad have not lost a single match after the 2014 World Cup reached it’s end.

England is positioned at the top of Group E after having sealed 5 victories from the 5 matches that have been played in the 2016 Euro’s and Wayne Rooney believes that the English squad have a true and genuine reason on why to be optimistic for the future of the national team as Roy Hodgson has made a number of changes that has initiated a string of positive results

The captain of the England national team, Wayne Rooney said: ‘’At the minute we have the tactics right and it’s moving in a good direction. We have learned with every game since the World Cup and are getting better, and there is an excitement back about England.”

Wayne Rooney continued on by saying that the team has picked up a more aggressive playing style which has resulted with the players being more energetic and quick when it comes to recovering the ball or taking it away from the enemies.

“It’s not so much about being ‘nasty’ but certainly about being aggressive.Not in a bad way in terms of putting really hard tackles in, but getting up to the ball quickly. We are harrying teams and making them make mistakes.’’ Rooney added on.

England’s latest qualification saw them claiming a 4-0 triumph over Lithuania as the English side are the leaders of Group E and favorites on not only advancing through the next rounds of the European competition but have also been edged on at least reaching the semi-finals.

The goal-scoring rate of Wayne Rooney has fallen considerably recently and one of the main reasons on why this is happening to the English forward is because of the new role that he is playing at Old Trafford as Louis van Gaal has been deploying Rooney in a midfield position which isn’t his traditional position.

Even though Rooney is not scoring goals on a consistent basis like he used to do some time ago, the Dutch coach believes that Rooney is still happy on helping out the team in his new role even if it means that his chances of scoring are limited.

‘’He’s happy. Otherwise he should come to me and say he’s not. He never does. He’s always friendly to me. He wants to perform what I want so that’s what I see.When the whole world is writing he has to be in the striker’s position, he will be thinking “maybe”. He’s human.But I’m looking for balance and I need it in midfield. The last games I played with Adnan Januzaj and Angel Di Maria in midfield. Then you need a certain balance for those kind of creative players’’ Manchester United’s Louis van Gaal said.

Louis van Gaal is hoping and expecting to sign a talented midfielder that can remove the weight that Rooney is carrying on his shoulders and allow the English attacker on playing in his forward position instead of what he has been doing recently in the middle of the pitch.

A number of summer signings is what Louis van Gaal is planning to do in order to fully accommodate his players and place each one of them in their natural playing positions.

Angel Di Maria started off his Manchester United career in superb form but the Argentine midfielder has failed to continue on playing like his early days at Old Trafford and this could force Louis van Gaal on having to sign a few more players during the summer transfer window.

Wayne Rooney reckons his team should have secured another win in the Premier League last weekend versus Aston Villa.

The Red Devils were on a winning run of 6 matches when they took the ground in that game and despite the fact that they were playing away, they were the firm favourites there because of their form.

And, United did play very well. They were always on top during the game, but, in the 18th minute, the coordination in their defence broke a little bit and that resulted in the all important goal which put Villa ahead by 1-0 in the 18th minute of the match.

Radamel Falcao brought Manchester United back in the second half, but, the winner did not come for the touring party despite all their efforts.

Anyone watching that game live would say that United was better, but, at the end of the day, both the teams came out with equal points and that’s what made Rooney so gutted.
Sitting there in the conference hall after the game, there was a perplexed look on the face of the Manchester United skipper.

When asked to convey his thoughts on the game, Rooney said, “I am gutted and I am sure the whole team would be feeling the same. We should’ve got the full points here.”

When asked if he thinks with the opposition being reduced to 10 in the last few minutes, his team had the chance to find that winning goal from somewhere, the striker said, “Well, the moment they lost one of their players, they went ultra defensive. They just wanted to prevent us from scoring. That’s it. But, yes, we’ve got to put a little bit of blame on ourselves as well. Perhaps, we couldn’t finish as well as we would have liked to.”