Everton’s poor home form worries Martinez

(Reuters) – Everton manager Roberto Martinez conceded he is worried with his team’s poor home form after the Toffees slumped to their fifth loss at Goodison Park this campaign in Sunday’s 2-1 Premier League defeat by Swansea City.

Gareth Barry’s deflected effort was cancelled out by Gylfi Sigurdsson’s opener from the penalty spot, but the relegation-threatened Swans clinched the three points thanks to a 34th minute strike from winger Andre Ayew.

The Merseyside club have managed three wins from their 12 league games at home and only bottom side Aston Villa, who have one win in 11 at Vila Park, have a worse home record in the league.

“We haven’t found the right way of playing at home. That is the truth. The stats reflect a really poor defensive record at home. We are a young team,” Martinez told British media.

“We want to impress our fans, play attacking football and become a winning team, but we are finding it tough to free ourselves.

“But I don’t think we’ve found it that easy this season to play at Goodison. I don’t think the performances are reflected in score lines.”

Everton, who are 12th in the table, seven points above the relegation zone after 23 games, host third-from-bottom Newcastle United on Wednesday.

(Reporting by Shravanth Vijayakumar in Bengaluru; editing by Amlan Chakraborty)