Rafa Benítez (now unemployed)

[mofo]

Haven't voted because I've no idea what to vote for!! Love Rafa and as most loved his time here. 

 

I'm just not sure it would work again, if he was given a couple of season's to slowly build the team and infrastructure then I'm confident that he would be a success. Unfortunately there is zero chance if him being given that time from our fans. As soon as he had a bad run they would turn on him.. Think it shows in the votes..

[geordie_b]

4 minutes ago, mofo said:

Haven't voted because I've no idea what to vote for!!

 

I couldnt decide so I framed the question another way. If you walked into a room with two doors, one with Rafa holding it open and the other with Howe, which one are you walking through?

 

The bias (and the reality) in the question is that Howe is currently the job so more people are going to stick with the status quo regardless of which would actually be better.

[mofo]

1 minute ago, geordie_b said:

 

I couldnt decide so I framed the question another way. If you walked into a room with two doors, one with Rafa holding it open and the other with Howe, which one are you walking through?

 

The bias (and the reality) in the question is that Howe is currently the job so more people are going to stick with the status quo regardless of which would actually be better.

Rafa

[geordie_b]

Exactly

[HaydnNUFC]

Howe. Wouldn't walk into a room with my ex tbh.

[madras]

6 minutes ago, geordie_b said:

 

I couldnt decide so I framed the question another way. If you walked into a room with two doors, one with Rafa holding it open and the other with Howe, which one are you walking through?

 

The bias (and the reality) in the question is that Howe is currently the job so more people are going to stick with the status quo regardless of which would actually be better.

What's on the other side of the doors ?

[mofo]

3 minutes ago, madras said:

What's on the other side of the doors ?

What's with all the questions?!?! 

[Andy]

For me, if Howe was to be sacked due to continuing bad form or relegation I would take Rafa on the basis that I don't believe anyone better would be keen on it. I wouldn't want Howe sacked to make way for Rafa though, he has to be given a fair crack at it with the (hopefully) additional bodies we have coming in. 

[TRon]

1 hour ago, Ronaldo said:

There’s nothing to base this on. He overachieved hugely with us and he can’t be remotely judged with any degree of accuracy on what’s happened since. 

 

Of course he can. Time doesn't stand still, he couldn't even hack it in China. He's about as relevant today as Mourinho. Not that relevant. 

[Ronaldo]

4 minutes ago, TRon said:

 

Of course he can. Time doesn't stand still, he couldn't even hack it in China. He's about as relevant today as Mourinho. Not that relevant. 

Another expert in Chinese football. Awesome. 

[madras]

5 minutes ago, TRon said:

 

Of course he can. Time doesn't stand still, he couldn't even hack it in China. He's about as relevant today as Mourinho. Not that relevant. 

Stints in Italy and Spain weren't huge successes either.

[r0cafella]

I think we have to give Howe more time and resources and see how it goes. If he gets us relegated he should be dismissed however. His mandate was clear and it was to keep us in the league and failure to do so would mean he needs to be moved on. 
 

Rafa is a superior manager to Howe, he’s won practically every major honour in the game after all. Given the structures we are looking to put in place I’m not sure appointing him make too much sense as he’s very top down and wants full control of the club which is dangerous in the event either party becomes unhappy with the status quo. 

[DJ_NUFC]

8 hours ago, Ronaldo said:

Another expert in Chinese football. Awesome. 

Good to see you back, Ron. Hope time has treated you well. ?

[nufcjb]

Weird how we thought at the start of the season, Bruce would be fuming when Rafa's Everton come.here in February and home supporters singing Rafa's song.

 

Little did we know, we'd get takenover, Bruce would be binned and we won't get to see Rafa back here at SJP, not even at Goodison too.

[Shearergol]

Doesn't this make the Digne sale a bit weird? Surely the Everton board already had it in their mind to sack Rafa if results didn't improve, so why not keep Digne until the end of the window?

 

More to that story than meets the eye I think.

[Dandy Man]

Agree 100% that Howe needs to be given more time and resources before we can even start thinking about Rafa as anything close to a serious option.

 

Loved Rafa when he was here and felt we were always in with a shout of getting something off any team, but the football was not exhilarating and the players that played so well under him have all regressed horribly since and doubtful even he could change that.

 

Can't judge him too harshly on what's happened at Everton but it's got to be a concern given we are just as much of a basket case of a club as they are and for all he was Staveley's choice it is not a given that he would fit into long term structure that new owners are supposedly trying to put together.

[Cf]

In the same way it took Bruce a while to undo Rafa's well drilled side it is going to take Howe a while to undo Bruce's mess. 

 

That said I'm underwhelmed by his start. League results have been below par and obviously the shambolic cup exit. 

 

If the choice a couple of months ago was Rafa Vs Howe I think most would be in agreement with getting Rafa in. I think though Howe has enough about him that he should be given some time but current performance is making it tricky to hold this view. Having a relegation under his belt doesn't help either. 

 

I guess the owners have to ask themselves if they think they have the right man to build the club. If so stick with him. Otherwise a certain ruthlessness might be needed. 

[NoU]

Rafa was my first choice when he was here. Rafa was my first choice when Bruce was sacked. If Howe leaves at a later point Rafa would be my first choice, but I think it would be crazy to sack Howe to get him in now.

[GeordieDazzler]

Apparently Martinez favourite - didn't the fans chase him out last time?

[wormy]

1 hour ago, Shearergol said:

Doesn't this make the Digne sale a bit weird? Surely the Everton board already had it in their mind to sack Rafa if results didn't improve, so why not keep Digne until the end of the window?

 

More to that story than meets the eye I think.

 

Saw someone mention in here they think they just used the Rafa discontent as an excuse to flog one of their valuable assets considering how little FFP wiggle room they have to make changes. Think I'm subscribed to that idea or it's one of the most short-sighted moves I've ever seen.

[BGRM]

2 minutes ago, NoU said:

Rafa was my first choice when he was here. Rafa was my first choice when Bruce was sacked. If Howe leaves at a later point Rafa would be my first choice, but I think it would be crazy to sack Howe to get him in now.

Yeah Howe needs more time like. Hopefully Rafa is still unemployed when Howe’s time runs out and we could turn to him then. 

[WillingtonMag]

Would like to think with the investment in the team we might at some point in the future be able to play some good attacking entertaining football. That rules Rafa out for me.

[Cf]

15 minutes ago, WillingtonMag said:

Would like to think with the investment in the team we might at some point in the future be able to play some good attacking entertaining football. That rules Rafa out for me.

 

Do people not remember the second half of his last season when we were playing some attractive stuff?

[AJ9]

5 minutes ago, Cf said:

 

Do people not remember the second half of his last season when we were playing some attractive stuff?

Aye, people are absolutely stupid to think we only played negative, boring football like. Totally lapped up the media narrative since he left.

[1878]

Hi all. Long time, no post!

To give an Everton perspective on Benitez - although there are some wider problems with the ownership, it's impossible to overstate what an incredibly bad job Rafa did here and how much damage he's been allowed to cause to the structure of the club in such a short time.

 

Although the fans were against his appointment, he got a very fair crack of the whip once he was actually in the job. The fans being against him was overblown by the media. It's only after a horrendous run of results and performances that the crowd turned on him.

• DOF - instead of trying to work with Marcel Brands, he made it his mission from day one to oust him, starting by cutting him out of all summer recruitment. This culminated in Brands resigning from the board and leaving the club during the season.
   
• Scouting - after ousting Brands, he fired the chief scout and head recruitment person that had been appointed by him. As far as I know, they have not been replaced, with Rafa just doing his own thing in the January window. This means that after sacking Benitez we basically don't have a recruitment department.
   
• Medical - he fired Danny Donachie, the long serving head of medical, who was very popular with the players, citing too many set backs in injury recovery. After appointing his own people, DCL promptly had an injury set back that kept him out for over a month longer and Yerry Mina broke down 15 mins into his first game back. Presumably his medical people will all go with him and we'll have to bring back Donachie et al or hire new staff.
   
• Coaching - for me, the one upside of the appointment was that he had a reputation for being a great coach who had his teams organised, well drilled and disciplined, especially defensively. What we actually got was a complete shambles. The defence has been all over the place from the first game of the season until Saturday's nadir at Norwich. There was never any shape to the team and they regularly looked lost on the pitch.
   
• Tactics - I knew from his time at Liverpool and yourselves that Benitez was quite negative, but he really took it beyond a joke here. I can't think of a single game this season where, no matter how poor the opposition, we didn't start the game by conceding all impetus to them even at home. I think he recently set some sort of record for consecutive games conceding the first goal.
   
• Formations - he often played a negative 5 at the back system, including against lower league opposition in the cup. The main failing however, was a weird insistence on playing a two man central midfield week in, week out, which got overrun by opposition midfield threes every time and lost us game after game. I don't think midfield pairs work generally in football these days, but especially not when Doucoure aside, there's a severe lack of pace available in central midfield (Allan, Davies, Gomes). Him apparently seeing Sean Longstaff as the answer to this was terrifying.
   
• Results - 1 win and 6 points in his last 13 says it all. Ok the squad isn't great, but it's nowhere near 1 in 13 bad. Last season, we finished top half and could still qualify for Europe on the final day. Mike Walker is widely regarded as the worst EFC manager of all time but before his sacking, he managed 1 win and 7 points in 13 games. Benitez also went out of the cup to QPR and suffered the heaviest home derby defeat for 40 years when he played his suicidal midfield two against Liverpool's three. 
   
• Injuries - this was Rafa's constant excuse, and true enough, at one point we had a few key players out at the same time. However, apart from DCL, there were spells were he had pretty much everybody else available and we saw no improvement. The squad was fully fit vs Norwich and he served up the worst result of the season.
   
• Rondon - fair enough, sign him on a free due to limited summer budget/FFP and working with him successfully in the past. But once it became very clear that the guy was overweight, unfit and couldn't run or even win a header anymore, just admit your mistake and drop him. Starting him was literally like playing 10 vs 11 every week. Do not persist with the guy for the entire season to the point where he becomes a lightning rod for fan frustration and starts getting booed onto the pitch by his own supporters.
   
• Youth - the club have got two good young strikers, Lewis Dobbin and Ellis Simms (who impressed on loan at Blackpool last season). He refused to give them a chance ahead of Rondon in DCL's absence until the recent Chelsea game, when he was forced to play them and young centre back Jarrad Branthwaite due to Covid. They all acquitted themselves very well in a battling performance to steal a draw, Branthwaite scoring the winner. They've not had a look in since. Dobbin is out of contract at the end of the season and has a host of clubs after him. Sacking Benitez will hopefully convince him to sign a new deal, because he was a cert to leave otherwise.
   
• Left Back - aside from the well documented petty fallout with Digne, he also sent away our only other recognised left back Niels Nkounkou on loan to Belgium before the season started. This kid looked like a great prospect playing in the cups under Ancelotti last season, especially attacking-wise. With Digne frozen out, we had to play a centre back (Godfrey) and a finished right back (Coleman) out of position. When the January window opened he spent £20m on Mykolenko to replace Digne and in the two games so far vs Hull and Norwich, he looks absolutely miles off being a Premier League level player. A total mess entirely of Benitez's own making.
   
• Right Back - the club have been desperate to replace Coleman for a couple of years and Rafa finally signs a good prospect in Nathan Patterson for £12m this month. Well done! However since then, Coleman and Jonjoe Kenny have started the games and even when dragged off for playing horribly, Benitez still wouldn't put Patterson in, instead moving Godfrey there. Pretty bizarre stuff.
   
• Work Environment - since the sacking, it's been said that the atmosphere at the training ground has been horrendous all season and that the majority of players are relieved to see him go. Notable that only Andros Townsend (who obviously had a pre-existing relationship with him) has made a social media post about Benitez since the news broke.

 

Things I would give him credit for:

 

• Demari Gray - one of the shining lights this season and an absolute bargain at £1.7m. Seems to have unlocked his potential. Struggling to think of anything else positive.

 

In my opinion, Benitez is very much yesterday's man and is finished at the top level. Throw in the fact that he could start a fight in an empty room and no Premier League club should touch him with a barge pole. Eddie Howe has been linked with the Everton job a lot over the years and I've never been keen on him tbh, but I'd have swapped him for Benitez in a heartbeat. I think your fans need to take off the rose tinted specs with Benitez, look at the reality of his performance at Everton (and China before that) and forget about the idea of him coming back to save the day. You're much better off sticking with Howe.