Tbh as soon as Benitez took the Chelsea job he showed that he has absolutely scant regard for the respect of Kopites. He’s as much a mercenary as the rest of them. Even Mourinho took employment from United and Spurs after being a Chelsea legend. The fact Benitez is even willing to take an interview with us shows he couldn’t give one about his Liverpool connections. I’m sure the Valencia fans weren’t happy about him rocking up at Madrid either, did he care? No.
Of course that works the other way around as well. He’s not going to be a lifelong Evertonian after this, but quite frankly neither have any of our managers been since HK was last in charge. Ancelotti talked the talk then binned us off at the first opportunity. Benitez is a mercenary football manager (like they all are) who will probably put himself before any of his clubs. As long as we understand that when we get into business with him then there’s no reason an exchange can’t take place where we pay him and he improves us. If he doesn’t he’s out, but that’s the same for any manager.
The only way that fans will have this sentimental misty eyed view of the club as they remember it being decades ago is if we appointed an ex player as manager. The fact that most of them are derided as cone layers on here shows that wouldn’t go down too well either. As soon as we go ‘outside of the parish’ for a manager we run the risk that any decent manager will not want to stay here. They have no connection to Everton, they don’t care about us, we are a stepping stone for them. We got a bit lucky with Moyes, but any manager who is good, or on the pathway to being good, won’t even look at us, or if they did won’t be here long.
Benitez might still be decent (I’ve no idea to be honest). He’ll probably stick around for a bit as he’s not on the upward curve at the moment and has done a lot of his career moving (what we thought we were getting under Ancelotti) and already lives here. He has prem experience and knows how to manage poor players.
He’s ticking all of Moshiri’s and probably Brand’s boxes whether we like it or not, and was probably the reason why Moyes and Nuno were amongst the other candidates. I’d imagine Everton’s requirements were something like this:
Must negate the risk of relegation before we move to a new stadium
Low likelihood of leaving for another club, will commit to a project to see us into the stadium
Has experience managing squads of different talent levels, and preferably in the premier league
Could push the club forward to European competition qualification
Can make use of the players we already have in the squad an attract other decent players
Preferable if available and affordable as cash is probably tight after Covid.
If this is anywhere close to what Everton were looking for then it immediately rules out a whole host of managers including Conte, Potter, Howe, Martinez, even Favre.
It actually leaves quite a short list which includes Moyes and Nuno and Benitez. Considering the first two were absolutely panned on here when linked then it’s only the Liverpool connection being the only blocker as to why Benitez isn’t a good choice for the club right now.
People don’t seem to understand that we cannot take a risk in this position. We are all chips in on the new stadium, Covid has made everything more difficult, the squad is in a perilous position with the best players unfit or wanting out and the rest not very good. We cannot roll the dice on a manager who might not integrate, can’t get the squad behind him, is shocked by the prem, or needs 100s of millions on players to implement his philosophy and can’t get results in the mean time.
