Friday 26 December 2014 14:03, UK
Everton manager Roberto Martinez is adamant he will not change his team’s style of football, despite being 13 points worse off than at this time last season.
Everton are ranked 11th after a 3-0 defeat to Southampton on Saturday, and Martinez is not underestimating the Boxing Day threat posed by Stoke, who sit just two points below Everton on the Premier League table.
"It's not about styles. Styles don't guarantee you results," Martinez said.
"In the last game against Chelsea, they [Stoke] showed that they are a side that are ready to compete against anyone in this league.
"I'm not concerned in terms of [our] performances, I don’t think we are far away from where we were last season, and even I would say that we are better this season, in many aspects of our performances.
"It's true that there is a strained relationship between performances and results, that at the moment we don’t seem to get and that’s where we need to be focusing."
Martinez said the busy festive season - in which Everton will play Stoke, Newcastle and Hull City - combined with a number of upcoming home fixtures as an opportunity for the side to amend its inconsistency and move up the table.
"We’ve got three games in six days which is an incredible opportunity, an incredible amount of points," he said.
"I think that every game you play at home we feel you need to be at your very, very best and make sure that that triggers a little bit of a chain of good performances that hopefully will boost the second half of the season. That’s all that matters at the moment."
Of Everton’s injured players, Martinez said midfielder James McCarthy and winger Kevin Mirallas had shown enough improvement in their fitness to be considered for the squad in the next two matches.
