Rafa Benítez (now unemployed)

[Jaqen]

Hard to have a go at the Everton fans for not wanting to fully accept him to be honest, as daft as that appears from our point of view. It will just never work out there for him, he's always going to be a few bad results from it turning toxic whatever he does.  

 

 

 

 

 

[Andy]

25 minutes ago, Jaqen said:

Hard to have a go at the Everton fans for not wanting to fully accept him to be honest, as daft as that appears from our point of view. It will just never work out there for him, he's always going to be a few bad results from it turning toxic whatever he does.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aye, always felt like a strange appointment by the club and a surprisingly naive move by Rafa. 

 

We'd be exactly the same if there was an alternate universe where we appointed champions league winning Peter Reid. 

[Happinesstan]

1 hour ago, Jaqen said:

Hard to have a go at the Everton fans for not wanting to fully accept him to be honest, as daft as that appears from our point of view. It will just never work out there for him, he's always going to be a few bad results from it turning toxic whatever he does.  

 

 

 

 

 

It's them that make that fact true, so yeah, have a go at them. I mean above all else HE'S A HUMAN BEING.

[NE27]

4 hours ago, Happinesstan said:

HE'S A HUMAN BEING

 

A good family man too, have they no respect.

 

Sure it'll be sound when they sack him though, because they never wanted him unlike us with Bruce.

[wormy]

7 hours ago, jackyboy said:

I'd like to have Rafa back here, lay the foundations, get us going then become DOF

 

Lovely thought in theory but I imagine Rafa as a DoF would end in tears. Couldn't picture him taking the step back from coaching that would be required. Seems the sort that'll be on the training pitch until he can't physically do the job. 

[KaKa]

Mad to think that if Rafa had listened to the Everton fans he would be our manager right now.

[Danh1]

Just looked on their forum and they detest Rondon. One of them saying all 4 sides of the ground should boo him next match when his name is read out. 

 

 

Edited October 24, 2021 by Danh1

[Conjo]

5 minutes ago, Danh1 said:

Just looked on their forum and they detest Rondon. One of them saying all 4 sides of the ground should boo him next match when his name is read out. 

 

 

Only watched ~2 matches of Everton this season and he was really poor so not shocked to read that. One of the games he started well in the opening 10 minutes where he looked a bit of a threat and that was about it. Didn't work particularly hard, poor at holding up the ball and never good into any good positions in the box.

 

He's had a long career and is 32 now, could just be he that he's finished at this level. 

[Superior Acuña]

Think it took him a while to get going here? Though he was never shite. And we didn't have much option but to persist with him.

 

 

Edited October 24, 2021 by Inferior Acuña

[Danh1]

Just now, Inferior Acuña said:

Think it took him a while to get going here? Though he was never shite. 

Aye he didn’t look great at first and then I think it was the Bournemouth game at home, he had a stormer and looked class from there. 

[Dr Jinx]

For us he’s a known quantity and never let us down. He made a mistake going there but it’s also easy to say that with the hindsight of the last few weeks.

 

The fact is he wanted to work and that was the only gig in town.

 

I suspect our new owners want a structure that he maybe wouldn’t be totally happy with anyway as he’s a control freak. He certainly wouldn’t work under anyone.

[Ketsbaia]

He was ok to decent here but I wouldn't take him back now.

 

Versus Bruce? Of course. But the world is now our oyster.

[Deuce]

They’re entitled to their own opinions, however asinine. We’ve all been subjected to years of other fans telling us how we should feel about our club, manager, owner, etc…it’d be a bit hypocritical for us to do the same.
 

That being said, I hope they go into administration and fall 3 flights the moment he’s gone. Treating the man the way they have, the two-bit fuckwads.

 

 

Edited October 25, 2021 by Tomato Deuce

[St. Maximin]

If we’re annoyed at people generalising our fan base then it’s a bit silly to make generalised comments about another club’s fan base also, no? I think we need to move on and not feel so precious about the man. He’s not ours anymore and moved on himself a while ago. 
 

I think you shouldn’t always go to such lengths to defend the guy also. They conceded five at home to Watford with some horrific defending, so by the very nature of his role he needs to take account in the same way he’s getting praise for their wins. Yes it’s just one result and he should be judged over time, but he has his limitations and things don’t always work out for him. His most recent club being a pretty good example. 

 

 

Edited October 25, 2021 by St. Maximin

[rgk_lfc]

16 hours ago, triggs said:

The amount of money Everton have spent to stand still or even go backwards maybe tells us that it's going to be a lot more difficult for us to break through than it was with Man City

 

Nope. All it shows is that whether you are Everton or Barcelona, if you spend money without a strategy or theme you will be in trouble sooner or later. 

 

You are owned by an investment fund supported by a sovereign wealth fund. But it is still an investment fund and they will be looking at returns on investment. FSG bought us for 200 or 300 million and we are valued at 2 billion plus now. PIF bought you for 200-300 and the plan will be to raise your valuation to north of 3 or 4 billion in 10-15 years. 

 

The thing with being owned by investment funds is that these folks always have a strategy, long term plan in mind. Us fans we are emotional. Our state is often defined by weekends results. These folks think differently. Every decision your owners take will be with the medium to long term goal in mind. I have no doubt that the plans for your club will be a lot more focused. Everything will be targeted towards achieving success within a time frame and thus improving the value of the club. 

 

[Manxst]

15 minutes ago, rgk_lfc said:

 

Nope. All it shows is that whether you are Everton or Barcelona, if you spend money without a strategy or theme you will be in trouble sooner or later. 

 

You are owned by an investment fund supported by a sovereign wealth fund. But it is still an investment fund and they will be looking at returns on investment. FSG bought us for 200 or 300 million and we are valued at 2 billion plus now. PIF bought you for 200-300 and the plan will be to raise your valuation to north of 3 or 4 billion in 10-15 years. 

 

The thing with being owned by investment funds is that these folks always have a strategy, long term plan in mind. Us fans we are emotional. Our state is often defined by weekends results. These folks think differently. Every decision your owners take will be with the medium to long term goal in mind. I have no doubt that the plans for your club will be a lot more focused. Everything will be targeted towards achieving success within a time frame and thus improving the value of the club. 

 

Although there will undoubtedly be an element of truth around growing their asset, let us not forget that a lot of people believe the reason the Saudis bought the club was for ‘sports washing’ and improving their reputation in the world via the medium of football. That’s where it differs massively from your owners, and therefore the ‘returns on investment’ may well be significantly different- more reputational than financial

[hakka]

Looking at Everton last season, they were never beaten the league by more than a 2 goal margin apart from vs. Man City on final day. So against Watford is all very strange. Given where they are, with the players they have out from injury, I'd say it's common sense to draw it off as a freak result and let Rafa do his job. He will get them more solid. Their fans are being arseholes because of his Liverpool days. I get the point earlier made that if we had a manager which was basically a Rafa type that was long term Sunderland manager, there would be some supporters unhappy with it. Maybe, I'd like to think we'd see the bigger picture given the success and we wouldn't be as cuntish as some of the Everton lot are being.

 

Some of the games Rafa has won hasn't been games they've done well across the 90 minutes. Burnley game stands out, where a change in second half led to a flurry of goals. Maybe that's on their minds, that the position they are in isn't reflective of the overall performances. But what do Everton fans want? top 4 with great football in every game? all the way until end of the season in Rafa's first 9 games? - we know Rafa takes time to implement his methods and his teams tend to finish very strong. They ended up 10th last season. Ancelotti definitely under performed with the players they have. They should be pushing for top 6. They were between Villa and Leeds, they should be doing better. Looking at results they peaked early and a underwhelming second half of the season. They only scored 1 more goal than us last year too.

 

If they were to allow Rafa to leave so we can have him, where does Everton go next for a manager? - They've already had Ancelotti and got 10th, they won't accept Rafa after 9 games despite being pretty much par with Arsenal, Man Utd, Spurs and Leicester. 

[The College Dropout]

They don’t want Rafa to succeed and he won’t succeed largely because of that. 
 

they’ll continue to be poor at Goodison because the crowd will be quick to turn. 

[ScottishMagpie]

Every time I see this thread bumped I'm always hoping it's someone confirming he's quit/sacked/chased out and is on his way back to SJP.

 

I know we should never 'go back' but big part of me keeps thinking "what if......"

[GWN]

I think we have to all be realistic,  spending tonnes of money even at Everton won't always work.It takes a lot of time to break into the top 6 now , things have changed .Everton have made some awful buys and it's not worked , Rafa is on a hiding to nothing but has a great squad so anything less than top 10 and he will have failed.

Leave him be, enjoy what he brought but please look forward now , he won't jump so we would miss out on him anyway.  We must move away from him now ?

[Dokko]

Wouldn't be surprised if 3rd parties are in talks on behalf of both clubs. It would be tricky to pull off as Everton and Rafa wouldn't want to lose face, but I bet deep down its whst they both want. It's only going to get worse for him as well. I doubt he sees the season out.

[Dokko]

2 minutes ago, GWN said:

I think we have to all be realistic,  spending tonnes of money even at Everton won't always work.It takes a lot of time to break into the top 6 now , things have changed .Everton have made some awful buys and it's not worked , Rafa is on a hiding to nothing but has a great squad so anything less than top 10 and he will have failed.

Leave him be, enjoy what he brought but please look forward now , he won't jump so we would miss out on him anyway.  We must move away from him now ?

The squad is full of shite. It isn't much better than ours but cost 20 times as much. Rico & DCL aside (ASM & Wilson for us) there isn't much there, possibly some better CBs but thsts about it.

[SiLvOR]

I'd love Rafa back, his vision being executed to its maximum potential would be wonderful to see. But the big question mark is whether it's even viable. Genuine question here, has any PL manager left a club a few months in to go to another one? I can't remember it happening, but happy to be corrected!

[Bimpy474]

16 minutes ago, Dokko said:

The squad is full of shite. It isn't much better than ours but cost 20 times as much. Rico & DCL aside (ASM & Wilson for us) there isn't much there, possibly some better CBs but thsts about it.

 

While i don't think their squad is that good, i think we're under estimating just how bad our is. We're awful, aye maybe better than the league position says, but our central midfield is utterly dreadful and will relegate us if that isn't sorted.

[GWN]

17 minutes ago, Dokko said:

The squad is full of shite. It isn't much better than ours but cost 20 times as much. Rico & DCL aside (ASM & Wilson for us) there isn't much there, possibly some better CBs but thsts about it.

 

Fair enough your opinion mate , I've not looked at it too much just expected it to be half decent the money they have spent.