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ROBERTO MARTINEZ has refused to accept that his players’ game-management should be questioned - after insisting that his side actually won the match at Stamford Bridge on Saturday.

Chelsea equalised after 97 minutes and 53 seconds at Stamford Bridge, from a goal which should have been ruled out for offside.

After allowing 11 points to slip away from winning positions in the last two months, some pundits - and indeed some of Martinez’s own players - have suggested that the Blues need to manage matches better.

But Martinez vehemently disagrees.

“If we’d have been sitting here with a 3-2 victory it would be a completely different perception. The players don’t deserve to be questioned for their game management,” he rapped.

“Do we need to be more ruthless?

“No. We won the game against Chelsea, it’s as simple as that. We were winning 3-2 when the clock showed 97 minutes and 50 seconds. We should have played 97 minutes and conceded a goal that shouldn’t have been given. It was offside.

“It’s a performance that shows how far we have come this season. We played with real intensity at the Etihad on Wednesday and kept a very good clean sheet and created a good threat.

“On Saturday, to score three goals was a victory that unfortunately has been taken away from us.”

The solitary point collected at Stamford Bridge ensured that the Blues remain in the bottom half of the Premier League table.

But Martinez insisted his side does not lack character.

“It’s because we are still a young team and sometimes we need to learn how to reflect our good performances in good results,” he added.

“We’ve been playing really well consistently this season and that’s a pleasing aspect as a manager, that’s what you want to work towards.

“The other aspect is we haven’t been getting the results we should have done. That’s the next step.

“I don’t think I can use the Chelsea game as an example in that regard.

“But the character we showed when we were brought back to 2-2, any other team would have folded or allowed the home team to have the momentum.

“We never accepted that and went to win the game and got the winning goal, and after that point everything else is out of our hands.”

The Blues boss is also convinced that his young squad is capable of fulfilling the rich potential it clearly possesses.

After finishing fifth in Martinez’s first season in charge of the Blues, with a club record Premier League points haul, Everton slipped to 11th last season when they struggled to juggle the demands of a run to the last 16 of the Europa League.

This season Everton lie 11th, but are in the semi-finals of the Capital One Cup and should reach the last 16 of the FA Cup after being drawn at the winners of the Yeovil v Carlisle replay in the FA Cup.

Martinez added: “We are excited about the team we have and the squad we have produced.

“We’ve been investing over the last three seasons and given young players a lot of opportunities, and now you are starting to see players that are very young but are mature enough, they are ready.

“You see John Stones and Ross Barkley and Romelu Lukaku, they have big roles in our team.

“The next aspect is to become a winning team and that’s a process that shouldn’t have been as hurtful as it was on Saturday, we will make sure that we fulfil that potential.

“We need to understand how to manage the game a little bit. After we scored the first goal we had a fantastic moment in the game, and managed the game really well. We took the sting out of the game completely and scored the second goal.

“Chelsea were always going to have some threat, it was a long ball for the first goal that we should have dealt with better and a deflection for the second which should never have been a goal.

“We scored a third goal and the way we managed the game for 97 minutes was very impressive.

“We learned from our lessons previously but clearly we haven’t got three points to show, but not because we need better knowhow, we played as well as we needed to to get the three points.”

The Blues boss also added he was looking above him in the Premier League and closing the gap on Stoke, Liverpool and Southampton, rather than looking nervously over his shoulder at relegation threatened clubs like Norwich who are just five points distant.

“Everyone can think what they want, but we’re thinking we can get up to the top four positions. We are allowed to think that way,” he said.