Phil Jagielka: Everton would be ‘settled and solid’ if they kept patience with Roberto Martinez
Phil Jagielka claims the constant managerial changes at Everton has unsettled the club’s progress since David Moyes’ tenure.
Jagielka spent 12 years at Everton and made over 300 appearances for the club. His first six years were all spent under Moyes, while his final six saw him play under four different managers and David Unsworth as a caretaker boss.
It shows the club’s volatile approach to manager appointments since Moyes left for Manchester United in 2013, and Jagielka thinks the club made a mistake by losing patience with Roberto Martinez.
The current Belgium boss was sacked from Goodison in 2016, just months after Farhad Moshiri’s stake in the club rose to 49.9%.
Speaking to FourFourTwo, Jagielka said: “I don’t know if the identity changed, but Everton have had many managers and different people buying players in recent seasons.
“It wasn’t like that in my first few years: David Moyes worked closely with the owner, Bill Kenwright, to build a squad.
“As players we weren’t accustomed to all the upheaval that followed Moshiri’s arrival. If the club had been a bit more patient, especially with Roberto Martinez, maybe we would’ve been more settled and solid.”
Hindsight
Everton are currently in a position far below the finishes that Martinez once achieved at Goodison Park, but that doesn’t necessarily mean things would be better if he stuck around.
At the time, the Toffees were pushing for European spots and Martinez showed that he was one step short of being able to achieve that goal.
The club then made a number of huge business mistakes, including managerial appointments, signings and board decisions. It’s resulted in a fragmented squad built by different managers with completely different philosophies.
Frank Lampard has had to start a complete overhaul of the squad, and it comes from indecisiveness and lack of direction from the board. The managerial merry-go-round at Everton has been a huge problem, but Martinez wasn’t – and isn’t – the solution.
His failures as Belgium boss have exposed his inability to get the best out of an extremely talented squad and compete at the highest level so out of Everton’s long list of regrets in the past decade – sacking Martinez is fairly low down.