{"id":3797,"date":"2014-04-27T04:48:45","date_gmt":"2014-04-27T04:48:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/?p=3797"},"modified":"2014-04-27T04:48:45","modified_gmt":"2014-04-27T04:48:45","slug":"we-are-still-in-the-race-for-top-four-martinez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/football\/we-are-still-in-the-race-for-top-four-martinez\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8221;We Are Still In The Race For Top Four&#8221; Martinez"},"content":{"rendered":"<header>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<header>Roberto Martinez is refusing to believe Everton\u2019s Champions League hopes ended with this bizarre defeat at St Mary\u2019s on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>Southampton took the spoils on the south coast thanks to two Everton own-goals. \u00a0His side gifted Southampton the points with two own-goals in the opening half.<\/p>\n<\/header>\n<div>\n<section>Now they must make sure they win\u00a0their remaining two games against Manchester City and Hull and hope Arsenal come unstuck in at least one of their three remaining matches \u2013 starting with the game against Newcastle Monday night.<\/p>\n<p>The Gunners, who also host West Brom and visit Norwich, are now firm favourites to claim fourth place.<\/p>\n<p>But defiant Martinez said: \u201cI always felt that to get into the Champions League is going to take a lot of points, maybe 72 or 75.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have 69 points with two games to go, which is a phenomenal return.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are going to get galvanised.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHistorically, only once has fourth place been secured by 76 points in over 15 years.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn terms of points, if we can reach 72 or 75 it is a remarkable achievement.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI just want as many points as we can get \u2013 and we will be giving everything to pick up six points from our last two games.<\/p>\n<p>: There was nowhere for the Everton defender to hide after his early own-goal.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<section>\u201cAfter those games we will look at the table to see where we are.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>There could not have been a worse start\u00a0for Everton, as their defensive frailties, in the absence of Sylvain Distin and Phil Jagielka, were cruelly exposed inside the first minute.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<footer>\n<div id=\"componentDiv_gig_containerParent\"><\/div>\n<section>\n<div id=\"outbrain_widget_0\" data-src=\"http:\/\/www.dailystar.co.uk\/sport\/football\/376217\/Southampton-2-Everton-0-Roberto-Martinez-upbeat-despite-two-own-goals-sinking-Toffees\" data-widget-id=\"AR_5\" data-ob-template=\"DailyStar\" data-ob-mark=\"true\" data-browser=\"chrome\" data-os=\"win32\" data-dynload=\"\">\n<div><wbr \/><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/footer>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Roberto Martinez is refusing to believe Everton\u2019s Champions League hopes ended with this bizarre defeat at St Mary\u2019s on Saturday. Southampton took the spoils on the south coast thanks to two Everton own-goals. \u00a0His side gifted Southampton the points with two own-goals in the opening half. Now they must make sure they win\u00a0their remaining two [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3798,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[60,80],"tags":[37],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3797"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3797"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3797\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3800,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3797\/revisions\/3800"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}