Roberto Martinez says Everton must start home games better

Roberto Martinez admits his Everton team must start their home games better in order to get the rewards he feels they deserve.

Two moments of poor defending cost them as they lost 2-1 to Swansea in a game where they were on top in terms of dictating play and creating chances for much of the contest.

Tim Howard conceded a penalty which Gylfi Sigurdsson scored and John Stones deflected Andre Ayew's shot over the keeper as the Welsh side defeated Everton for the first time in a league game.

In total, Martinez's side made 20 scoring opportunities but got just two on target and could not make 60 per cent of possession count.

Two late misses from substitute Seamus Coleman, the second from close range, were among the best openings Everton could not convert.

They also lost Muhamed Besic and Kevin Mirallas to injury and Martinez does not expect either to recover in time for Wednesday's Capital One Cup semi-final second leg at Manchester City.

Everton have now led at half-time in just three of their 12 home Premier League games so far this season - also winning only three - and the Spaniard admits that is not good enough.

"It's a game that brings a scoreline which is very hard to take," Martinez said. "In the first half, we didn't start as well as we can.

"I don't think we were sharp enough and we were a little bit pedestrian. There were other aspects that weren't in our control. We had two injured players that stopped the momentum a little bit.

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"The penalty came from nothing but in the second half, with the reaction we had, the control and the amount of chances we created, the scoreline could have been very, very different.

"Today nothing went in our favour. An example of that is the last chance we had with Seamus in a great position.

"We know we have to start games better and we have to use the first half at Goodison a lot better. It's been difficult this season but I think the reaction in the second half was good.

"The chances we created should have been enough to win the football game, never mind to get a draw."

Martinez refused to attribute blame solely to Stones, whose pass back to Howard was too light at the penalty incident.

He added: "I don't think it's just John. It's as a team and it's a situation where we have to deal with a little bit more control.

"Of course, we all know we have to do that aspect a lot better and I don't think there's any need to get punished the way we did.

"It was very unfortunate the team didn't see the player. We should have been aware and should have seen that area better.

"It's day like today where you see how good we can be and how soft we allow scorelines to go away from us. We need to learn from these painful lessons and become a lot better."