Rafa Benítez (now unemployed)

[Skeletor]

14 minutes ago, Neil said:

 

I'm happy to give him more time as his record deserves it and you're right that we badly need some stability. But he's seriously not helping himself at the moment. 5 points in 12 games is diabolical whatever way you cut it - I'm willing to accept a transitional season to implement his methods but that needs to improve ASAP because that is quite simply relegation form.

 

The one beacon of light is it sounds like he's getting a lot bigger hand in transfers.

 

What about 11 in 19?

 

 

 

Edited January 3, 2022 by Skeletor

[AyeDubbleYoo]

Guess the problem is where you go after two champions league winning managers with excellent records and experience have ‘failed’. 

[Ben]

Seems a bit daft to sack him after letting him spend money on "his" targets rather than the director of football they sacked.

[Danh1]

Has Rondon shown any signs of improvement? 

[Jaqen]

1 hour ago, wormy said:

I get he loves his work but I find it mad that instead of just going and spending some time at his home in Liverpool whilst biding his time for a more suitable role, he jumped at a job that everyone (apart from him, I guess) knew would end in tears solely because of the fans just because said job is near that home. 

 

Thing is with football management, a job going badly just means you get a massive payout  

[gazza ladra]

23 minutes ago, Skeletor said:

 

What about 11 in 19?

 

 

 

 

 

Howe is at 5 in 7. Still not good enough.

[The Bonk]

23 minutes ago, Danh1 said:

Has Rondon shown any signs of improvement? 

Sent a decent chance into the rafters. Not sure booing him onto the pitch helped his confidence much. 
 

Think we saw him at his peak in a NUFC kit, tbh. How fucking awesome was he? Same goes for Rafa, I suppose.

[The Bonk]

4 minutes ago, gazza ladra said:

 

Howe is at 5 in 7. Still not good enough.

Swap squads and I bet that’s a different number.

[Guest Biggsbond14]

1 hour ago, Dr Jinx said:

Apparently having a board meeting tomorrow to see if they are still all on the same page after backing him before.

 

If he’s still in favour they will approve a transfer strategy, if not then he’ll be gone before end of month.

Errr if he isn’t in favour he will be sacked straight away as a new manager would buy his own players not let him select them then peddle him , there dof is out the door too 

[Neil]

38 minutes ago, Danh1 said:

Has Rondon shown any signs of improvement? 

 

Hes been a disgrace.

[AyeDubbleYoo]

Always a big risk bringing someone back from a league like China. Not too easy when you (I assume) have a transfer budget of zero pounds though. 

 

 

Edited January 3, 2022 by AyeDubbleYoo

[gazza ladra]

What do you expect for nothing?

 

 

 

 

Edited January 3, 2022 by gazza ladra

[duo]

Anyone questioning Rafa just needs to remember what he did with arguably a worse squad of players that we have now - with zero budget.  Give the man time and the budget - he'll get you a team.  

[The Bonk]

I personally don’t mind Everton, @Neil is sound, but it’s painfully clear this isn’t going to work out. 
 

I love Rafa, but he’s somewhere between old school and the new wave of manager’s like Klopp, Pep, Tuchel, and Howe to lesser extent. He’s way too stubborn to adapt to a squad as talent diverse as Everton’s. He has his systems and expects players to follow, regardless of on pitch chemistry.

 

Howe would have been a great appointment for Everton and I’m surprised he wasn’t interested or interviewed back when.

[The Bonk]

9 minutes ago, duo said:

Anyone questioning Rafa just needs to remember what he did with arguably a worse squad of players that we have now - with zero budget.  Give the man time and the budget - he'll get you a team.  

Problem is Everton have spent, are talented and Rafa should be doing better with the players at his disposal.

 

We were a squad of also rans who all bought into Rafa and were well drilled players hoping to improve under a world class manager.

[Thiago]

7 hours ago, joeyt said:

He wouldn't have known that the takeover would be announced 3 months into the season, it wasn't exactly making progress back in June

 

It seemed to even take Staveley and her entourage by surprise how quickly it was resolved

 

 

 

The speed but not the outcome.

[GWN]

2 hours ago, duo said:

Anyone questioning Rafa just needs to remember what he did with arguably a worse squad of players that we have now - with zero budget.  Give the man time and the budget - he'll get you a team.  

 

you don’t get time .

 

look at some of the comments already on here about our own manager ffs.

[St. Maximin]

7 hours ago, duo said:

Anyone questioning Rafa just needs to remember what he did with arguably a worse squad of players that we have now - with zero budget.  Give the man time and the budget - he'll get you a team.  

That was one team though. There’s no guarantee he’ll get it right everywhere and he and Everton clearly don’t look the right fit. 
 

He was great for us and engaged with us brilliantly, but we can’t talk about his time here as if he’s a miracle worker or never made questionable decisions. Getting the best squad in the Championship promoted was expected and we managed to end the seasons well in the Premiership despite being in relegation battles. We were fighting with Cardiff for safety in 2019 and nobody raves about Warnock. We finished higher last year than then under Bruce and we definitely didn’t have better squads than teams below (Wolves, Brighton, maybe others), also thanks to a great end to the season - things can often pan out this way.
 

The 10th place in 2018 was very impressive, but even then he wouldn’t be the first or last to take a newly-promoted team into the top 10. Wilder took a clearly worse squad higher. Unfortunately it fell apart the next year, but it’s not surprising given their squad. Ultimately managers have their ups and downs and will rightfully come in for criticism even with previous success (e.g. Mourinho). I haven’t assessed his tactics much, but Everton fans watch their team so seem to be in a good place to comment. 

 

 

Edited January 3, 2022 by St. Maximin

[Guest Biggsbond14]

1 hour ago, St. Maximin said:

That was one team though. There’s no guarantee he’ll get it right everywhere and he and Everton clearly don’t look the right fit. 
 

He was great for us and engaged with us brilliantly, but we can’t talk about his time here as if he’s a miracle worker or never made questionable decisions. Getting the best squad in the Championship promoted was expected and we managed to end the seasons well in the Premiership despite being in relegation battles. We were fighting with Cardiff for safety in 2019 and nobody raves about Warnock. We finished higher last year than then under Bruce and we definitely didn’t have better squads than teams below (Wolves, Brighton, maybe others), also thanks to a great end to the season - things can often pan out this way.
 

The 10th place in 2018 was very impressive, but even then he wouldn’t be the first or last to take a newly-promoted team into the top 10. Wilder took a clearly worse squad higher. Unfortunately it fell apart the next year, but it’s not surprising given their squad. Ultimately managers have their ups and downs and will rightfully come in for criticism even with previous success (e.g. Mourinho). I haven’t assessed his tactics much, but Everton fans watch their team so seem to be in a good place to comment. 

 

 

 

Totally get what your saying about newly promoted teams like us for instance and looking back maybe Rafa just got lucky as from leaving us it’s turned to shit and as a outsider probably bad career moves (cash in China aside) , outside of Merseyside I guess everyone thought wtf is he doing especially the animosity towards rafa from the blue side before he even got the job. Will he get cash to spend this window? Who knows but if he doesn’t it’s a bad sign for him going forward 

[gazza ladra]

12 minutes ago, Biggsbond14 said:

Totally get what your saying about newly promoted teams like us for instance and looking back maybe Rafa just got lucky as from leaving us it’s turned to shit and as a outsider probably bad career moves (cash in China aside) , outside of Merseyside I guess everyone thought wtf is he doing especially the animosity towards rafa from the blue side before he even got the job. Will he get cash to spend this window? Who knows but if he doesn’t it’s a bad sign for him going forward 

Don't they need to sell before they can buy? I was under the impression that they hampered by FFP. Downgrading at left back at LB to buy players better suited to Rafa's tactics?

[Guest Biggsbond14]

9 minutes ago, gazza ladra said:

Don't they need to sell before they can buy? I was under the impression that they hampered by FFP. Downgrading at left back at LB to buy players better suited to Rafa's tactics?

Leaves a difficult situation considering they have just spent that money on that player a few days ago and going by previous results who knows how much time he has 

[sh74]

Why don’t we swap Everton’s defence for ours if he can work miracles with ours.

[joeyt]

That sense of general malaise persists. Salomon Rondon has done little right since arriving as attacking cover in the summer but even so, booing a player’s arrival onto the pitch can never make sense

 

https://theathletic.com/3046875/2022/01/02/benitezs-bad-decisions-were-to-blame-for-this-loss-as-everton-turned-toxic-again/

[mighty__mag]

1 hour ago, St. Maximin said:

That was one team though. There’s no guarantee he’ll get it right everywhere and he and Everton clearly don’t look the right fit. 
 

He was great for us and engaged with us brilliantly, but we can’t talk about his time here as if he’s a miracle worker or never made questionable decisions. Getting the best squad in the Championship promoted was expected and we managed to end the seasons well in the Premiership despite being in relegation battles. We were fighting with Cardiff for safety in 2019 and nobody raves about Warnock. We finished higher last year than then under Bruce and we definitely didn’t have better squads than teams below (Wolves, Brighton, maybe others), also thanks to a great end to the season - things can often pan out this way.
 

The 10th place in 2018 was very impressive, but even then he wouldn’t be the first or last to take a newly-promoted team into the top 10. Wilder took a clearly worse squad higher. Unfortunately it fell apart the next year, but it’s not surprising given their squad. Ultimately managers have their ups and downs and will rightfully come in for criticism even with previous success (e.g. Mourinho). I haven’t assessed his tactics much, but Everton fans watch their team so seem to be in a good place to comment. 

 

 

 

 

I do agree with much of this. And I would honestly say I'd be worried if he was in charge of this side, basing it on how he froze out Mitrovic who is clearly a goal machine, now doing a similar thing with Digne. 

 

I think someone like ASM being frozen out would rub plenty of our fans up the wrong way. 

 

Still love the guy though, just something about him, think its more to do with the fact he did everything to go against Ashley and involve us fans. 

 

Basically the guy has integrity. 

[TRon]

14 hours ago, sh74 said:

He went to China.

 

He went there because there was no job close to home other than continue getting the piss taken out of him by Big Mike. His home is still in Liverpool. It's still the reason why he took the Everton job.