Martinez piles pressure on Poyet

Sunderland 0 Everton 1

During four years in charge of Wigan Athletic, he found out what was required to keep a team in the Premier League before eventually suffering the drop, wining the FA Cup and making the move to Goodison Park last summer.

So he was well aware of how Sunderland, rooted to the foot of the Premier League and seven points adrift of safety, would approach the visit of his Champions League aspirants — and he successfully negotiated the latest hurdle.

This could be the sweetest of first years as Everton manager for Martinez, even if it meant leaving the Stadium of Light grateful for a Wes Brown own goal which took his side above Arsenal in to fourth place.

With just five matches remaining, Everton can sense a momentous culmination to the campaign. Leon Osman, the Toffees’ long-serving midfielder, said: “We all believe in each other in that dressing room. We believe in the instructions the manager sets out and we’re full of confidence. We set our targets and make sure we carry out the game-plan.”

Martinez knows exactly what he is doing. He described his squad as having the perfect “balance of experience and talent” before suggesting his previous encounters of relegation struggles helped earn the victory over Sunderland.

“I was at Wigan for many years and I know that a team fighting to avoid relegation with six or seven games to go can really deliver physical performances out of the norm,” he said.

“We matched them at that and delivered a little bit of quality at the end to win it, but they are a very good team and we knew it was going to be a tough fixture. It’s fair to say the football we have played this season has made everyone at Everton very proud and it is just a starting point for the future.”

While Everton sit with a club record Premier League points total of 66 points after winning seven games in a row, Sunderland’s troubles look as if they are only just beginning. Brown’s own goal — the seventh own goal the team has conceded this season — arrived when he tried to stop a cross from the lively Spaniard Gerard Deulofeu, on loan from Barcelona, quarter of an hour before full-time. Instead his efforts ended with his block turning inside Vito Mannone’s near post.

There was no way back for a spirited Sunderland, who were once again toothless in attack. Head coach Gustavo Poyet, who took over last October after Paolo Di Canio’s turbulent reign, feels Sunderland’s problems are more deep-rooted than just picking up the pieces from his most recent predecessor.

Poyet said: “There’s something wrong in the football club and it’s not an excuse. I need to find that. If I don’t find it, we’ve got a problem. I’d like to think I know what it is but no, I don’t. It’s too many things. I always say to myself ‘what happened with Steve Bruce in his second year?’ ‘What happened with Martin O’Neill?’ ‘What happened with Di Canio?’ What happens with me now?

“I don’t want to get away from the responsibility because I am responsible. I am the first one. But who is going to be next? A, B, C — you can call him anything and the club will be in the same situation. I don’t like it, it’s not me. I need to find the solution and whatever it is, I need to put it right.

“It’s sad because at the end of it, the one who goes is the manager. You try, you try, you try, but at the end the one who loses his job and looks bad is the manager. I’m going to find a solution before I go!

“I cannot promise I will get this club safe because I’d be lying to you. If I say ‘I will promise you, we’ll be safe’ and then nothing happens and I walk away, that’s not right. But I’m going to leave it a better club I think we are a better club from the moment I got here.”

SUNDERLAND (4-2-3-1): Mannone 6; Bardsley 6, O’Shea 6, Brown 5, Alonso 4; Ki 6, Cattermole 6; Johnson 6, Colback 6 (Larsson 69, 6), Borini 6; Wickham 3.

Not used: Ustari, Gardner, Giaccherini, Cuellar, Vergini, Scocco.

EVERTON (4-2-3-1): Howard 8; Coleman 7, Stones 8, Distin 8, Baines 7; McCarthy 8, Barry 8; Deulofeu 8 (McGeady 78, 6), Naismith 6, Osman 6 (Barkley 58, 6) Lukaku 6.

Not used: Robles, Hibbert, Mirallas, Garbutt, Alcaraz.

Referee: Lee Probert