Martinez said Jagielka will not be among the starters in their League Cup semi-final first leg against Manchester City on Wednesday, but is hopeful the defender could be involved against Dagenham and Redbridge in the FA Cup third round next Saturday.
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First of all, the manager was asked about one of his former charges at Wigan, Steve Gohouri, who tragically passed away recently.
On to the match, and there was an update on injuries to Phil Jagielka and James McCarthy. The formation will probably be the same regardless but Muhamed Besic’s transformative appearance as a substitute on Sunday made a strong case for his inclusion from the start, either in the left sided role in which he was deployed against Chelsea in September (before he succumbed to injury) or alongside Gareth Barry with Tom Cleverley moved over to the left.
“I feel that playing at home, Goodison at its very intimidating best, we can face anyone and we’re looking forward to replicating the level of our performance against Spurs”.
Everton fans have been doing their best to try and put Martinez’s record at Wigan out of their minds as the goals have flowed in at the wrong end in recent weeks but it’s the Catalan’s history with City in an important Cup clash that can provide some comfort.
“Steven Pienaar is available for the weekend so there is good news there, too”. He is also one of the leaders in the team.
“He was excellent when he started against Newcastle and we know we have got a really good attacking player in the squad and he is a big part of it”.
He also had a say on the players – such as John Stones – who have been linked away. We all need to learn as a football club that we have a special group of players and we have to help them.
“Whenever there is a situation that is good for the player and good for our squad in general we will announce it but there is nothing to comment on at the moment”.
“The fans are showing the great frustration we share”. “That’s something we want more than anything, to be able to give our fans a taste of becoming a winning team once again”.
‘Every time we have a blow we react, always fight until the end and some of our attacking play this season has been outstanding.
“We’ve got the Euros round the corner so there’s going to be a couple of decisions that we need to make in order to benefit everyone but I wouldn’t speak about any individual at the moment”.
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“If we can find anyone that can help us in what we want then we’ll always look into it but there’s no priority at this point”. “We have enjoyed the support of our fans at places likes Barnsley, Reading and Middlesbrough, where they were phenomenal”.
