After Thoughts On: Tough Toffees

Well it was a game in which so little was expect to begin with, but we are walking away from it disappointed and annoyed not to have won a game. That in itself is a good thing. It shows that the team is working well together and putting in performances that we know should be getting points for the club. That of course doesn't get rid of the bitter taste from the mouth.

Yet if the glass isn't half full, then what is the point? That is the Martinez way take the positives and work with them, and there is plenty to work with. The industrious central midfielders who don't seem to know how to stop closing players down, and the work rate of the three is fantastic and is the really core of the team. Nothing to change just more of the same especially from the on fire Shaun Maloney.

But that isn't even the best bit at the moment. The player/players to impress I don't think just us but a lot of the watching audience of the Premier League, is the two up top.

The absolutely beautiful partnership that is Di Santo and Kone has set alight our recent matches and the two of them together look like world beaters. If one goes short the other makes the run, while if one goes for the header the other looks for the flick on. We haven't seen such a partnership since the days of Jason Roberts and Nathan Ellington, and look what happened to those two when they were on song together.

They are the really gleaming light of our team at the moment and make you wonder why we ever needed Victor Moses. When our two strikers play together, what is great about them is that they contrast so nicely off of each other.

Franco is a work horse, doesn't stop closing layers down or chasing the ball and in the past few months making those leading runs. Where as Kone is the man playing of Di Santo, looking to get onto the flick on's hold the ball up and try to beat players with his pace and power on the ball. It is a joy to watch.

I could spend hours talking of how the two work so well tactically and have the positional sense of a strike partnership. Yet there is a time and a place for that, and it isn't here.

So what else is there in our performances?

Well Ali Al Habsi is getting back onto form. In the past few weeks he hasn't been at his acrobatic self, yet none could moan at the keeper for his performance against Everton, who must have wondered what they had to do to beat the Omani keeper.

Yet the defense in front of him weren't so rigid. The weak link this week was Maynor Figueroa, we have yet to see the defense as a whole have a good game. As one of them picks up another drops off in form, hopefully that will change and we can have a full strength back three.

At the moment if Alcaraz returns from injury it maybe Figueroa who could lose his place. But watch this space.

There is light at the end of the tunnel, but you get the feeling that the international break is coming at the wrong time for an improving Latics side.