“Bournemouth are a team that have been very unfortunate this season”, Martinez told Everton TV.
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“It’s about preparing his body to be physically strong, but it is great to see him back in training”.
“For a while we’ve had really positive momentum in terms of proactive attitude to get better”. When you get promoted you get that. They are a team with a lot of energy, they work extremely hard as a unit and they are a possession team who control the ball well and want to break teams down.
“It is just about giving Leighton exactly what he needs”.
“The mentality and the psychological fatigue forces you as a manager to try to rotate things and freshen things up”. They have scored 11 goals in their last three league games, while striker Romelu Lukaku has seven from seven.
“Competition for places is the only reason why we have been so good in our performances”.
“We’ll have to look after the ball even more than usual because they are quick on the counter, but we’ll go into the game with lots of confidence”.
Roberto Martinez today warned that Everton defender Leighton Baines must overcome a psychological barrier before making his long-awaited return from injury. It’s just making sure now we give him the right introduction to get that match fitness.
“I would expect players not in the starting line-up not to be happy with the situation, although they understand if they are playing or not playing they are a direct influence of how we perform at the weekend with the tempo in training and everyone pushing to the maximum to get into the starting line-up”. We will take it day by day.
Martinez said the club would take it “day by day” and would make a decision on Friday if Baines would be involved against Bournemouth.
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He also said that both Tom Cleverley and Muhamed Besic are fully fit and ready to play when selected.
