2021/22 Rafael Benitez

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Baggzio said:
If Benitez brings stability and constantly challenges for Europe then there'll not be one blue carrying an agenda against him or calling for his head, the whole narrative of "he's only 2 bad results away from fans turning on him" is nonsense really but that doesn't mean he won't get criticism when he deserves it. If he gets us top 8 this year, given what we've spent and the poor depth in the squad, he should be commended. However he still has a long way to go to convince many that he's a long term (2 years+) solution for us.

Him keeping us "out of danger" isn't good enough quite frankly, he must compete. That is what we should expect of any manager. For god sake Big Sam got us in the top 8, that is the absolute minimum for us. If he achieves that great but what people are afraid of is if he doesn't we'd have literally tried every type of manager and failed every single time. Rafael has to bring stability like I said but I brought up Big Sam for a reason, he got top 8, Rafael should too but sometimes that simply isn't good enough, seasons like this where Spurs, Arsenal and Leicester and all on the down seemingly there's a real chance for us to break into 5th and be part of the Champions League conversation like Leicester did last season.

We always miss out on these opportunities of other teams being crap by being crap ourselves, it really isn't that hard to be a top 7 team anymore which is almost always Europe, Chelsea, City and Liverpool are guarantees for CL and United probably are now too, outside of that there's nothing special about the rest of the league at all. So like I was saying if we don't challenge for full Europa League qualification this year then it'll not only be a massive disappointment and missed opportunity but it might also be a sign of Benitez not being the best candidate for us, unless we get wrecked by injuries and get no one in January, even with that top 8 is mandatory.
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Allardyce spent £41M in the time he was here. Benitez will be lucky to get that in the next 2/3 years.
 
LeeCarsley said:
with our wage bill there is zero reason we shouldn't be finishing above the West Hams and Villas. transfer fees is a very narrow view of finances in football, and I believe our squad is more than good enough to compete near that 6th-7th spot. 8th is the absolute minimum for me, maybe 9th if we keep having injury problems.
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If I bought a dog, dressed it up in an Everton shirt & paid it £150 million a year, would you expect us to win the league considering the ''wage bill''?
It's the quality of the players that should be considered, not the weight of the wage bill.
 

davek said:
Allardyce spent £41M in the time he was here. Benitez will be lucky to get that in the next 2/3 years.
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Benitez also has a squad worth over £50m more than Allardyce had which will also likely only grow in value as he's here. I'm not here to defend Big Sam or any manager we've had previously but saying a manager has had a only a certain amount to spend is irrelevent really when Benitez has had the best first 11 available to him since Koeman if not better than that.
 
LeeCarsley said:
with our wage bill there is zero reason we shouldn't be finishing above the West Hams and Villas. transfer fees is a very narrow view of finances in football, and I believe our squad is more than good enough to compete near that 6th-7th spot. 8th is the absolute minimum for me, maybe 9th if we keep having injury problems.
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But again is that every season?

Moyes never finished in Europe every season should we have sacked him?

We've managed to qualify for Europe 1x in 5 years therefore you want us run like Watford sacking managers every 5 seconds.
 
LeeCarsley said:
with our wage bill there is zero reason we shouldn't be finishing above the West Hams and Villas. transfer fees is a very narrow view of finances in football, and I believe our squad is more than good enough to compete near that 6th-7th spot. 8th is the absolute minimum for me, maybe 9th if we keep having injury problems.
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The First team is competitive, or should be, but the squad has zero depth. I agree with you about the wage bill being a good barometer of where you should finish but we've handled that as badly as transfer fees.
 

ForeverBlue92 said:
But again is that every season?

Moyes never finished in Europe every season should we have sacked him?

We've managed to qualify for Europe 1x in 5 years therefore you want us run like Watford sacking managers every 5 seconds.
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No but he outstayed his welcome here by a good few years, it was pretty obvious he had run out of ideas and if it was'nt for Kenwright he would have gone long before he did.

Europe does'nt bother me as we don't have neither the team nor the squad to play in it, but the signs are Benitez will have money to spend in January to give us an extra little push so I don't think top 8 is out of the question unless we have a massive injury crisis.
 
Simon Buttle said:
No but he outstayed his welcome here by a good few years, it was pretty obvious he had run out of ideas and if it was'nt for Kenwright he would have gone long before he did.

Europe does'nt bother me as we don't have neither the team nor the squad to play in it, but the signs are Benitez will have money to spend in January to give us an extra little push so I don't think top 8 is out of the question unless we have a massive injury crisis.
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But again mate this idea that we HAVE to be progressing up the table every single season otherwise the manager gets sacked is bonkers.

Obviously we need to progress but that doesn't always happen in a straight line - we could finish 10th this season, 6th next season then 8th the season after - where do we draw the line at sacking the manager?

In that above scenario if we potted him end of this season we miss out on a top 6 finish next season.

We simply need to give this fella 3+ seasons to rebuild the squad and if we haven't qualfied for europe after 3 seasons with money to spend by all means question his position but doing what we have been the last 6-7 years of chopping and changing every 12-18 months will see us either in financial trouble or relegation at some stage.
 
Anyone thinking Benitez is here for the length of his contract and beyond , making out he is unsackable do not read the room.
If results continue he gets the time , but the moment Moshiri's investment is threatened ie. relegation is on the cards he will pull the trigger just as he did with Silva & Koeman.
Does anyone think if he got us relegated Moshiri would keep him on like Newcastle did.
He's a very shrewd businessman and will always protect his ( & his cuddly mates ) interests well before it came to that.
 
davek said:
IMO this is a 4 year project we're looking at. That allows Benitez to shift us from the over-priced, under-quality mid-table plodders he was left with. The lack of cash will mean he has to add a couple of first teamers each summer and weed out the obvious ones for departure: Iwobi, Gomes, Holgate etc. It'll take three summer windows to transform us into Benitez's team. And the stadium is an issue too. Four years will see us into that and we need steady progress under a manager who can get us turned and facing the right direction.

We need a four year (at least) tenure from a manager. We need that organisational stability. I see us getting that from Benitez.
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Then when he signs a new contract it'll be like the two terminator films first one was good but second going to be a blockbuster.
 

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