2021/22 Rafael Benitez

[Efcjake]

We’ll finish mid table, and the squad will be better next year than it is this year. I’m convinced of this. Everything else is just noise. If this was any other manager we’d be behind him trying to oust Brands and root out the core problems at the club. Just let him get on with if. If the bad results continue then he’ll get fired so I don’t know what people are so worried about. That’s Moshiri’s MO, he’s done it countless times in the past. The squad is a mile away from European football so we’re not missing out this season by not having a different manager. So if we’re floating in the middle why not just let him get on with it? What have we got to lose literally, the club has been a shambles for years.

You might be convinced of it but thousands of us are not. We're seeing a manager who has no idea how to turn the worst form in the league around.

Believing that it is all going to magically get better and we will comfortably slide into midtable seems like utter madness to those of us who have watched us get turned over by Watford, Villa, Brentford, QPR, Wolves, West Ham and Palace. How you can say we're going to comfortably be midtable when we're getting beat by that lot is mind-boggling. It's pure blind faith based on no evidence like actual football match results.

The what do we have to lose answer is Premier League status. The form is relegation stuff and hasn't changed for months. It's going one way.

 

[Eggsyblueskin]

We haven’t played any good football since Martinez’s first season and a few games under Carlo so I couldn’t really care less what style Benitez brings, it can’t be any worse than what’s been served up the last 7 years.

Managers change the style when they enter a club, look how quickly United fell away from Fergie’s football to Moyes. These long term philosophies don’t exist. When Benitez goes his football will go with him.

I want a couple of seasons of Benitez sweeping the decks and leaving us with a squad of players who are fit, mobile, have a decent mentality, and actually want to play for the club. Is that really so hard to comprehend? Does that make me a super fan because I don’t want another managerial change and another 12 months of Coleman Keane Davies Iwobi surviving transfer windows or even worse getting an extension? No.

No it doesn’t make you a super fan although it makes us so far apart in this matter that we may as well be supporting different football teams.
Thanks for your honest reply, although I disagree with every word of it.

 

[BirkenheadBlue]

Koeman was the lowest of the low, without excuse

Koeman was sacked after taking 8pts from 9 games, a run that included City, Chelsea, Spurs, Man Utd and Arsenal (who he was sacked after losing 5-2 at home against)

Benitez has 3 less points from a game more, and also lost 5-2 at home…

To Watford.

 

[Saint Domingo]

Allardyce, no question. Koeman, I would argue against you. Nothing, I've seen from Benitez is any better than his first season and his second season was a mess and completely divorced from what we saw when he got us to 7th. Either way, both got better results out of the squad than Benitez. He's got a worse record than either of them when you stack their first games in charge against his.

Koeman had Lukaku Barkley Gueye in his first season, a completely different proposition. His second season was the worst set up of any football team I’ve ever seen. I don’t care what a selection of results say. Koeman got fired because every man and his dog, including Moshiri, knew without question we would be relegated. We could barely run or pass a ball with those players, we were absolutely clueless. We went one up against a poor Arsenal at home and everyone knew we’d lose heavily. Allardyce came in and set the team up sensibly and still served up the second worst football I’ve ever seen from an Everton team and it was still night and day an improvement to what Koeman produced.

The results aren’t there yet but the football is far far better under Benitez than under Koeman or Allardyce.

 

[windymiller]

you'd never think would you that we are one point behind schedule to match last season listening to Windy. Or that Benitez has only been in charge for the first three months of season one. Or that we'd had the injury crisis from hell.
It's now more than ever that the club needs this sterling support. It's what our success in the lsat thirty years has been based on.
Never change Windy.

We are 11 points behind where we were at this exact point last season.

I won't change, NSNO is not just a slogan it is what we should all demand, the fact that you don't says more about you than me.

 

[Saint Domingo]

Are you suggesting the first team are not good enough or the squad?

Both. It’s the same thing. Fully fit the First team has about five decent players. The rest are hopeless. Sometimes those five aren’t particularly good either. When you get into the squad it’s a nightmare.

 

[Eggsyblueskin]

What are you going on about? I expect desire and will from the players and a plan from the manager, that's it. If that's entitled so be it. We flog ourselves at work to earn in a year what these players and managers earn in a few days, so yeah, when I hand over my cash, that has taken me hours or days to earn, the least I expect is that. They do owe us that. That isn't entitlement, that is some pride in doing your job.

You draw a parallel in my job, fine, if I don't meet basic expectations in my job, for a while I would get support and training, if that makes no difference to my performance I get set targets and, eventually, if I don't meet those targets I have to explain why I'm not meeting them and eventually, if I continue, to underperform, I am dismissed. That is the very definition of the industrial complex that governs all of our lives. If I underperformed for 6 months my bosses would want to know why and my customers may take their business elsewhere. You and I are unlikely to take our business elsewhere, where would we go? Tranmere? The idea that support of a failing system should be unconditional defies logic and you should be ashamed of yourself for suggesting otherwise. Everton is not my child, they are an institution that I choose to give my time and my money to but I cannot countenance doing that and being denied my opportunity to be unhappy when they do not meet minimum, minimum, expectations.

Excellent post.

 

[Efcjake]

Koeman got fired because every man and his dog, including Moshiri, knew without question we would be relegated. We could barely run or pass a ball with those players, we were absolutely clueless. We went one up against a poor Arsenal at home and everyone knew we’d lose heavily.

That's exactly what the rest of us are seeing about Benitez that you aren't.

 

[Spadge Vernacular]

Both. It’s the same thing. Fully fit the First team has about five decent players. The rest are hopeless. Sometimes those five aren’t particularly good either. When you get into the squad it’s a nightmare.

This was around Christmas time last year.

 

[Thomasc]

Koeman was the lowest of the low, without excuse

Koeman finished 7th in his first season and then we pulled the trigger after a dreadful start.

He also had a dreadful start to his second season with Southampton, but went on to finish 7th that season, making his time there consisting of a 6th and 2 x 7th place finishes.

If we pulled the trigger too early on anybody, it was him.

How this galoot is surviving this is beyond parody after we lose tomorrow.
5 points out of 36 surely must be the end, if not, it just proves once and for all that Moshiri is just the most random owner and is just completely making things up as he goes along.

 

[Papa Shango]

They’re not average managers, they’re all fairly decent managers who are dealing with what every coach ends up dealing with if they’re outside the top 6, crap players, poor refereeing decisions, and a lack of real budget. My point is that there’s no miracle manager waiting in the wings to suddenly turn players who have been awful if we give managers to world beaters.

I’m not sure why Brighton are being besmirched when people have admitted that without our few best players we’re pretty much a bottom half side. I’d love us to be able to say ‘we should be pushing for Europe’ but anyone with a brain cell can take a look at some of the players here and realise that we don’t ‘deserve’ any position in the league, let alone assume we’ll fi sub ahead of the likes of Brighton just because we’re called Everton.

We’ve got rubbish players, and what decent players we have get injured all the time. They’re the realities. We have no divine right to finish anywhere.

It's you who is besmirching Brighton and their manager who has done a cracking job pretty much everywhere in his career.

I'm not bothered about deserving to finish anywhere, what we as fans do deserve is a bit of identity.

Or maybe we don't. I don't know any more.

 

[Nymzee]

That's exactly what the rest of us are seeing about Benitez that you aren't.

I’d like to know our form leading up to Koeman going.

 

[BirkenheadBlue]

I’d like to know our form leading up to Koeman going.

Koeman was sacked after taking 8pts from 9 games, a run that included City, Chelsea, Spurs, Man Utd and Arsenal (who he was sacked after losing 5-2 at home against)

Benitez has 3 less points from a game more, and also lost 5-2 at home…

To Watford.

 

[4737carlin]

Koeman was sacked after taking 8pts from 9 games, a run that included City, Chelsea, Spurs, Man Utd and Arsenal (who he was sacked after losing 5-2 at home against)

Benitez has 3 less points from a game more, and also lost 5-2 at home…

To Watford.

Yeah but did Koeman have our injuries and a 1.7m budget?

 

[Papa Shango]

Koeman had Lukaku Barkley Gueye in his first season, a completely different proposition. His second season was the worst set up of any football team I’ve ever seen. I don’t care what a selection of results say.

Oh come on!