Martinez told Mirallas not to track back
Former Toffee Leon Osman has recently shed light on Kevin Mirallas’ Everton career so far, saying former boss Roberto Martinez told him ‘not to worry’ about tracking back, the Liverpool Echo report.
The Belgian international has struggled so far during the current campaign, only managing 28 minutes of Premier League football to date under current manager Ronald Koeman.
Despite his struggles so far, Mirallas’ former team-mate Osman still believes he has a part to play at Goodison Park this season. The winger won the penalty at Brighton on Sunday and almost snatched a stoppage-time winner, only for a fine double save from Matt Ryan denying him.
Osman claimed that former boss Martinez changed the way Mirallas normally applied himself on the field, telling the winger to use all his energy going forward, instead of helping his team mates in defence, which Osman believes was a factor in losing some of the team unity during Martinez’s reign in charge.
Under Roberto he was told, because of Roberto’s style of play, that he didn’t need to track back. He was told ‘don’t worry, we have other players who will do that. You use all your energy going that way’ which is fine, but sometimes it isn’t really because sometimes you’re up against it and it took us a season to get rid of that attitude. He needed to learn to be a team player again, to get back and help each other.