Rafa Benítez (now unemployed)

[Disco]

Welcome back la'. Can't say I disagree too much with your conclusion. Such an odd appointment from every angle even before his below par job.

[Sima]

Rafa's MO doesn't fit in with modern football and long-term sustainability at a club.

 

We saw how he ousted Graham Carr when he was here as to how he likes to manage.

[r0cafella]

I recall he has his own scouting system which he prefers to rely on. 
 

As @Simahas said though, it causes massive issues when he departs due to this. 

[Facundo Ferreyra]

21 minutes ago, Cf said:

 

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

 

One of the best games I've ever been to at SJP was Newcastle 3 - 2 Everton in the last half of Rafa's last season. The place was fucking bouncing when that third goal went in. 

[Paully]

https://twitter.com/king_kevs_rant/status/1482837461986430977?s=21

[Kid Icarus]

Sounds like an absolute shit show. He did plenty of similar things here (getting rid of Carr, Mitrovic, Mbabu - signing Murphy, Selz etc) but the good very much outweighed the band, it was all backed by the fans, the rationale was that we as a club needed that overhaul, and then it was all vindicated with us going up and staying up and being defensively sound. Sounds like it was as terrible a fit as most were saying it was from the start. 

 

 

Edited January 17, 2022 by Kid Icarus

[Menace]

18 minutes ago, 1878 said:

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.

 

Cracking post. I don't want him back.

[Yorkie]

Cheers for the lowdown, @1878, and nice to see you back posting. Sounds like a disaster. 

[madras]

38 minutes ago, Cf said:

 

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

We did late last season under Bruce as well.

 

Edit....we did the season before as well iirc.

 

 

Edited January 17, 2022 by madras

[Newintoon]

Can we not just say some managers just don’t work at certain clubs, Everton was never going to work we could all see it a mile off and surprised he couldn’t, I’m not having he’s done after 1 poor job, China being an average job in strange circumstances lockdown / language.

 Look at Moyes, horrific at Man U and Sunderland back to one of the better managers in the league at West Ham.

I wouldn’t look to get rid of Howe it’s far far too early for that but if we go down despite investing quite heavily in the transfer window it would be time to look at something else, would Rafa be included in the possible list of replacements, absolutely 

[WillingtonMag]

51 minutes ago, 1878 said:

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.

Great Post pretty much sums up my opinions of him, think it's more this forum that has an over inflated opinion of him than Newcastle fans in general mind.

[Klaus]

59 minutes ago, alijmitchell said:

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

 

 Remember hearing Allardyce push that viewpoint as well. The very cheek of that footballing dinosaur, criticising Rafa man

[Fantail Breeze]

1 hour ago, alijmitchell said:

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

 

That goal against Ipswich in the Championship where they didn’t even touch the ball from kick off  

[wormy]

Love it when ManDoon goes on one. 

[Wandy]

1 hour ago, 1878 said:

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.

 

Fair do's. You've convinced me. Howe it is then...till the end of the season anyway.

[TRon]

1 hour ago, 1878 said:

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.

 

Great post. 

[Guest HTT II]

I love Rafa, and would have him back here under most circumstances, but I feel it’s time to move on and his ways off the pitch wouldn’t be a good fit as he likes 100% control and although he’s capable of brining in his own people which we already kind of lack anyway, it would be wiser for the club to bring their own people in right now. I hope he takes time out of the game and comes back refreshed after a period away. He’s an asset to football still.

[Fantail Breeze]

44 minutes ago, wormy said:

Love it when ManDoon goes on one. 

 

He was only one post away from ‘your da sells avon’.

[Dandy Man]

Think it's pretty clear Rafa did a horrible job at Everton on any measures, regardless of any mitigating circumstances. I'd tend to defer to opinions of fans who were at the coalface, Brands was obviously shite but no guarantees Rafa would have got on with any other DoF, playing a clapped out Seamus Coleman at left back is probably worse than Matt Ritchie imo.

Like a lot of stuff it tends to become a binary for/against decision without any acknowledgement of grey areas, he could still do wonders if he came back here but impossible to ignore what has happened at Everton.

[1878]

ManDoon - no offence but I don't think you know enough about Everton to be wading in like this 

RE: Brands - he had a mixed record of signings but there were some good ones like Digne, Richarlison, Mina, Godfrey, Doucoure, Branthwaite, Nkounkou and Gomes (before Son crocked him at least). It's well known that Moshiri made the managerial appointments and that some of the signings weren't by Brands. James and Allan were demanded by Ancelotti for instance. Iwobi was a deadline day Moshiri panic buy of a player represented by one of his super agent 'mates' after failing to sign Zaha. El Ghazi is apparently another Moshiri signing from an agent he has links with.

 

The general point about Brands is that Benitez charged in like a bull in a china shop instead of trying to work together and provide a bit of stability for the club. It is not the way to go about things and has left us with no continuity now that Benitez has been sacked. Newcastle are supposed to be going down the DOF route from what I've read, so I don't see how that could work with Rafa.

 

RE: Dobbin - going off about this seems a bit odd, but I assume you haven't seen how bad Rondon is these days. Dobbin has scored 1 goal in 3 games as a wide forward in the U23's this season, yes. I watched the U23 game he scored in vs Brighton and he was a cut above everybody else on the pitch. He's showed flashes in limited PL time and set youth goal scoring records when he used to play as a central striker. I'm not saying he is the finished article or is going to be world class, but he can offer a hell of a lot more than the corpse of Rondon. Simms would be the more like for like replacement for Rondon as a target man. Check out some of the goals he scored for Blackpool last year. It's only League One but there were some belters.

 

RE: the crowd reaction - I've got a season ticket at Goodison, have you? I said he got a fair crack after the appointment. Those banners were pre-appointment and yeah, were out of order. When I turned up to the first game of the season I wondered whether they would even formally introduce him to the crowd and if so, feared for the reaction a bit. They introduced him to warm applause. He only lost the crowd much later due to his own shit performance.
 

[Guest HTT II]

Your analysis of his time at your club is very interesting I’ll say that and it’s good to see you back posting. It was a stupid appointment period and a stupid decision by Rafa to go there, but I still maintain, he’d have turned yous around if fully backed financially and from the stands, basically if yous were not Everton. Looking in from the outside it seems Everton are just as bat shit crazy as a club as we have been, but on a much bigger budget. To be worse off after what 5-6 seasons and all that money says everything about the owner, the people he’s brought in, the recruitment and the money wasted. If it’s true Martinez is returning, I can see that ending exactly the same way as Benitez’ ending. I’d try and go down the Potter route, start afresh, slow rebuild etc. grow organically with an emphasis on signing sensible players and promoting youth.

[TRon]

2 minutes ago, HTT II said:

Your analysis of his time at your club is very interesting I’ll say that and it’s good to see you back posting. It was a stupid appointment period and a stupid decision by Rafa to go there, but I still maintain, he’d have turned yous around if fully backed financially and from the stands, basically if yous were not Everton. Looking in from the outside it seems Everton are just as bat shit crazy as a club as we have been, but on a much bigger budget. To be worse off after what 5-6 seasons and all that money says everything about the owner, the people he’s brought in, the recruitment and the money wasted. If it’s true Martinez is returning, I can see that ending exactly the same way as Benitez’ ending. I’d try and go down the Potter route, start afresh, slow rebuild etc. grow organically with an emphasis on signing sensible players and promoting youth.

 

Potter's already said he's not interested in talking to Everton. 

[Guest HTT II]

I really like Richarlison or rate him, but he seems massively hit and miss whenever I’ve seen him for a length of time and for what he cost, he isn’t delivering and won’t get any better. I think of the seemingly good or better buys, they still cost big money, no? Again, to be worse off after that big spend is pretty damning in the guy responsible for recruitment. This is the iffy side of having someone other than the manager doing the recruitment just as much as it is the manager the only one doing the recruitment. Having the right DOF is as important as having the right manager, get both right and it’s lottery winning stuff. We will no doubt go through similar experiences…

 

 

Edited January 17, 2022 by HTT II

[Guest HTT II]

Just now, TRon said:

 

Potter's already said he's not interested in talking to Everton. 

I meant Harry Potter, they need some wizardry to sort their mess out!

[Chicken Dancer]

Good insight 1878, I can remember years ago when we linked to Adam Nonceon from Man City and being fucking buzzing, whereas Man City fans were commenting on how he's a pure MOTD player and will only look good for 10 minutes a game or something. It's important to listen to what that set of fans say about a specific player/manager as they watch them week in, week out. We only see glimpses and it can give a distorted perspective of the situation. Obviously in this case I knew it was bad (Rafa at Everton) but your posts really do summarise it well.

 

I absolutely loved him here to the point where I packed in my Season Ticket after 17 years or something when he left. I think he's been horrendous at Everton but it was a horrendous appointment. It's entirely possible to think he's done a shit job there, but done a good job at NUFC, though. Not really rose-tinted specs, I just think he improved us massively, whereas he's obviously done the polar opposite @ Goodison. Was heartbroken the day he left.

 

Definitely wouldn't have him back, though. Think I agree that he's been left behind a tad by the modern game.

 

Don't think he'd ever agree to it, but maybe international management would suit him better these days.