Rafa Benítez (now unemployed)

[Guest neesy111]

4 minutes ago, Pata said:

Arsenal’s squad is so much better than Everton’s that it’s unreal. DCL has been out for a while, Richa has been in and out and Doucoure had an injury. They have to play shite like Gordon, Iwobi, Davies as there simply isn’t anyone else. Rondon and Coleman both look finished but they don’t have any other options. I’ve watched them quite a but this year and I don’t think he’s lost the dreasing room either outside Richarlison who seems to think he has outgrown Everton which tbh is probably fair.

 

Rafa could easily get the boot but I doubt there is a manager who would have done any better with that squad and Gray and Townsend have been their best players available all season.

 

Arsenal can put saka, Smith-Rowe, Partey and Pepe in their midfield man. To say they are similar is absolutely bonkers.

 

 

 

Edited December 2, 2021 by neesy111

[Thiago]

9 hours ago, joeyt said:

 

Doesn't sound good

 

 

 

I can sort of understand the ugly football, as even here we didn't start doing the nice stuff until the last six months when things were settled. Fans/players will take that stuff if you're winning/building but I think they all know he's a glorified interim. 

 

What he's supposed to do re: Rondon when Calvert Lewin is injured I have no idea. It was a car crash idea from minute one and I don't blame the fans for kicking off. He's not local to the area, had iconic success with their greatest rivals, and absolutely talked them down when there. I'm almost as baffled at him for taking it as I am them for appointing him. 

[Thiago]

8 hours ago, TRon said:

The owner who has spent as much as any in the PL over the last few seasons? Also hired top class managers on the surface as well? If the owner's at fault you could argue it's because he's hired the wrong DOF or whoever is in charge of recruiting players, but most fans would love an owner who showed ambition. 

 

 

I could win the Euromillions tomorrow mate, doesn't mean I'm getting Blyth into the Football League. 

 

I think you're looking at this in too binary a way. Yes, he's put money in, but how he's put that money in, and the way he's built that club up have been incredibly poor. He's lurched from manager to manager, throwing more money in each time, and now they've got a squad that doesn't work well together at all. Michael Keane for £25m looks no better than what we've got here. Look at the graveyard of attackers - Rooney, Klaasen, Walcott, Sigurdsson, Tosun, Bolasie. That's well over £100m in fees never mind wages. They've had 5 managers since 2016. How do you ever expect success when your idea of stability is David Unsworth as caretaker. 

 

Aye, sure, Marcel Brands deserves a lot of stick, but he also hired him. This is why I hope Staveley gets a proper CEO in. You need expertise in this game, you can't just read a CV and assume. You need to know what actually went on at that club, how does it transfer to here, what's the club's short term and long term aims. You can't just plug Ronald Koeman in and hope it clicks. 

[Abacus]

Doubt it's a popular view, but one thing that's hard to deny about the apparently meticulous Benitez is that his decision making is pretty poor or under-thought when it comes to the jobs he takes on.

 

Going to China was a daft choice. Fine that wasn't why he left Newcastle, and so that's not my problem with it at all. Going there can only have been about the money and can't have been well researched. Oh but Covid! Nah. Always excuses for him. It was a shit choice even at the time.

 

Going to Everton was presumably as much about being near his family home as it was fixing a squad with no money, so presumably he didn't either understand the problems there to start with or isn't good enough to fix them.

 

The point being, neither being nearer to home nor just money aren't great reasons for joining either of those two clubs if you're still ambitious, for all of his talk of 'projects'.

 

Likewise, Newcastle was a terrible career choice for him. He can't have understood how much trouble we were in or the state of that squad when he took over in that relegation season. 

 

And he can't have done his research on the owner if he actually believed Ashley would stick to his word or have a single shred of ambition when he did stay on and get us promoted. Nor can he have any people skills to imagine that playing power games with Ashley was going to work or would end in any other way than it did.

 

Before even that, Real Madrid was the wrong choice and arguably Chelsea too - prestigious jobs, but both short term and never the long term project he claims to crave.

 

I'm grateful for the job he did at Newcastle, but I wouldn't be surprised if he's sacked from Everton and I couldn't blame them if he was. 

 

If they did, which other PL club would take him on now? His stock has fallen quite far and that's all due to his own decisions about who to join the first place.

[AyeDubbleYoo]

I’m not sure everton was that unwise or always doomed. That’s only if you buy that narrative is more important than ability and practicality. 
 

I don’t watch them every week, but you’d think they have to be very careful about sacking him. Where do they go next after two champions league winners? 
 

Course I get why fans are unhappy. 

[Guest neesy111]

It's soo easy to say from the outside that going to China was a bad choice.

 

He clearly likes experiencing different cultures and wanted a project.  He also said he guranteeing the jobs of his staff was also in his mind which it certainly did.

 

With the pandemic millions and I'm talking tens of millions have had to move back from places to their original homes or back close to them across the globe.

[The Butcher]

China was about the 12m net a year. Nowt else.

[Fantail Breeze]

36 minutes ago, Pata said:

Arsenal’s squad is so much better than Everton’s that it’s unreal. DCL has been out for a while, Richa has been in and out and Doucoure had an injury. They have to play shite like Gordon, Iwobi, Davies as there simply isn’t anyone else. Rondon and Coleman both look finished but they don’t have any other options. I’ve watched them quite a but this year and I don’t think he’s lost the dreasing room either outside Richarlison who seems to think he has outgrown Everton which tbh is probably fair.

 

Rafa could easily get the boot but I doubt there is a manager who would have done any better with that squad and Gray and Townsend have been their best players available all season.

 

You say Arsenal’s squad is so much better and justify that by saying Everton’s is weak if you take their top three players out?

 

Take Smith-Rowe, Saka and Aubameyang away from Arsenal’s team and you’re replacing them with shite like Martinelli and Lacazette who have scored a whopping two goals between them this season.

 

If you went through the teams: 

 

Pickford and Ramsdale are probably on par.

 

Keane and Godfrey are better than White and Gabriel

 

Doucoure and Allan are better than Partay and Lokonga

 

Coleman and Digne are better than Tomiyasu and Tavares

 

Saka and Smith-Rowe are better than Gray and Townsend.

 

Richarlison is better than Odegaard

 

Aubameyang and Calvert-Lewin are pretty close.

 

Arsenal may have one or two better options from the bench, but nobody is telling me they’re miles ahead of Everton as the table evidences.

[Guest neesy111]

Martinelli is shite

 

I've heard it all now, he's 20 years old.

 

 

Edited December 2, 2021 by neesy111

[Lush Vlad]

So basically in some strange Everton and Arsenal combined XI (why not, they’re all the rage these days). You’d only have about 3-4 Arsenal players and the bench would be made up of mostly Everton players and all? 
 

Wow  
 

Coleman better than Tomiyasu? Maybe 5-6 years ago, aye. Keane better than White? Partey not as good as Allan? 
 

Shite like Lacazette and Martinelli  

[Fantail Breeze]

5 minutes ago, neesy111 said:

Martinelli is shite

 

I've heard it all now, he's 20 years old.

 

 

 

 

He’s totally unproven.

 

Third season at Arsenal and he’s got six goals and one assist. Hardly setting the world alight and good enough to justify stating Arsenal’s squad is stronger than Everton’s.

 

Interestingly, Iwobi’s stats over three seasons are remarkably similar. Despite being used above as an example of a shocking squad.

[Fantail Breeze]

3 minutes ago, Lush Vlad said:

So basically in some strange Everton and Arsenal combined XI (why not, they’re all the rage these days). You’d only have about 3-4 Arsenal players and the bench would be made up of mostly Everton players and all? 
 

Wow  
 

Coleman better than Tomiyasu? Maybe 5-6 years ago, aye. Keane better than White? Partey not as good as Allan? 
 

Shite like Lacazette and Martinelli  

 

So despite completely disagreeing with my assessment, you can only pick out three questionable comparisons as being wrong?

 

Still hardly this massive disparity in quality between the two squads.

 

It’s not a combined 11, it’s a direct assessment of their squads as to who is better or if they’re pretty similar. Made easier by grouping two players together.

As I said, the squads are fairly similar.

[xLiaaamx]

They really could have done with Sigurddson not being an absolute wrongun really. 

[Guest neesy111]

Ahh using the Wikipedia headline stats for league goals I see.

 

It's actually 13 goals and he's been injured for most of th last 18 months.

[xLiaaamx]

Hang on why did they sell Bernard for about a million? 

[Super Duper Branko Strupar]

2 minutes ago, xLiaaamx said:

Hang on why did they sell Bernard for about a million? 

 

Think he was out of contract next year.

[Guest neesy111]

2 minutes ago, xLiaaamx said:

Hang on why did they sell Bernard for about a million? 

Age?

[Lush Vlad]

5 minutes ago, Fantail Breeze said:

 

So despite completely disagreeing with my assessment, you can only pick out three questionable comparisons as being wrong?

 

Still hardly this massive disparity in quality between the two squads.

 

It’s not a combined 11, it’s a direct assessment of their squads as to who is better or if they’re pretty similar. Made easier by grouping two players together.

As I said, the squads are fairly similar.

I don’t particularly agree with many of them. But those were the ones that massively stood out. 
 

I don’t even think this current Arsenal team are great by their high standards. But certainly a fair bit better than Everton’s. 

[Guest neesy111]

Would it not occur to people if Rafa was about picking the best jobs he could do etc, then he would've never touched us with a barge pole.

[Pata]

1 hour ago, Fantail Breeze said:

 

You say Arsenal’s squad is so much better and justify that by saying Everton’s is weak if you take their top three players out?

 

Take Smith-Rowe, Saka and Aubameyang away from Arsenal’s team and you’re replacing them with shite like Martinelli and Lacazette who have scored a whopping two goals between them this season.

 

If you went through the teams: 

 

Pickford and Ramsdale are probably on par.

 

Keane and Godfrey are better than White and Gabriel

 

Doucoure and Allan are better than Partay and Lokonga

 

Coleman and Digne are better than Tomiyasu and Tavares

 

Saka and Smith-Rowe are better than Gray and Townsend.

 

Richarlison is better than Odegaard

 

Aubameyang and Calvert-Lewin are pretty close.

 

Arsenal may have one or two better options from the bench, but nobody is telling me they’re miles ahead of Everton as the table evidences.

Everton’s squad is really weak and Rafa has been missing three of their best players for a large part of the season. That has to be a factor when you are saying how poor a job Rafa has been doing this season, no?
 

I really disagree with most of your opinions about both Arsenal and Everton squads too.

[joeyt]

1 hour ago, xLiaaamx said:

They really could have done with Sigurddson not being an absolute wrongun really. 

He's been bobbins for them and cost them an absolute bomb

[Menace]

2 hours ago, The Butcher said:

China was about the 12m net a year. Nowt else.

 

Pretty much. Who else would gladly go to Dalian ffs

[LV]

The fella lives football and doesn’t want to sit at home doing nothing. There were no other decent jobs about. So they happened to pay him a lot, so what?

 

Ashleys lot put out the propaganda about him only going for the money so that it would quell some of the heat on him with Rafa going. Looks like some have swallowed that whole. Awful stuff. 

[Raconteur]

3 hours ago, xLiaaamx said:

They really could have done with Sigurddson not being an absolute wrongun really. 

I’m wondering how much that is impacting on the Everton dressing room.

 

These players have sat beside an alleged sex offender in the change rooms, some probably had the Sigurdssons over for barbecues. They probably get every single rumour about him too. That’s got to be a heavy burden for the dressing room.

[xLiaaamx]

Sunlun's sat and discussed the age of consent with Johnson