Benitez carries can, but this is Moshiri’s mess
Spaniard was a gamble but problems at Goodison are far more deep-rooted
FACTS is a word that will be forever be associated with Rafa Benitez and the facts of this miserable situation show why this sorry chapter has closed.
From the last 13 games there has been one win, six points, 12 goals scored and 27 conceded. Everton have shipped the first goal in 15 of their last 19 league and cup fixtures and the prospect of relegation is real. No man — no matter what their c.v. — could withstand such a calamity.
For some of the increasingly enraged fan base, and possibly some of the players, the removal of Benitez will be seen as a relief, the lifting of a cloud 200 days after his controversial appointment. His reign will go down as the second-shortest managerial stint in the club’s 144-year history.
The problem with Everton, however, is that the facts do not tell this whole story. Making Benitez the scapegoat for a situation that, increasingly, is becoming an affront to those who are emotionally invested in this once proud club is complete nonsense.
Everton’s issues go deeper than Benitez underperforming. Much, much deeper. Everything stems from the unpredictability of Farhad Moshiri, the majority shareholder who is turning Everton into the football equivalent of Michael Carroll, the lottery winner who frivolously wasted his fortunes.
There are good people behind the scenes at Goodison Park, those who are desperate for a period of stability, but when you have someone like Moshiri, who can change his mind at the toss of a coin and ignore all advice, what chance do they have?
That he was determined to appoint Benitez last summer — even when there was vehement opposition from within given the Spaniard’s Liverpool legacy — indicates a man without any understanding for his environment.
At one stage last June, it seemed as if Moshiri would appoint Nuno Espirito Santo following Carlo Ancelotti’s defection to Real Madrid. Nuno and his advisors held a zoom meeting with the club while he was in Lisbon but, after being told a written offer would come, nothing materialised.
Nuno’s camp suspected a deal with someone else was being pursued elsewhere and it soon transpired it was Benitez, who formalised a three-year contract with Moshiri after a meeting on board the yacht of the Iranian’s business partner Alisher Usmanov in Sardinia.
Marcel Brands, the director of football, recommended Roberto Martinez, who Moshiri sacked in May 2016 shortly after taking charge, but his proposal was vetoed. Here was a scene to illustrate the separation within: three different visions, three different styles, no common ground.
Benitez was all on Moshiri. Regardless of the graffiti daubed on the walls of Goodison or the sinister messages written on bedsheets that were hung at the bottom of the road where the 61-year-old lives on the Wirral, he was unveiled on June 30.
Other than wins under the floodlights against Burnley and Arsenal plus a draw at Old Trafford, there has been little to smile about since. The mood among those who follow the club around the country has become increasingly hostile to the manager, to the board, to the players.
They have every right to feel cheated and that their club is being taken down a dead end. No matter how much PR comes from the club about the proposed new stadium at Bramley Moore Dock, the thing that matters most of all — the team — has a giant hole in its hull.
What has Moshiri done to improve it apart from squander money? Jettisoning Benitez and his staff, who have suffered the same fate as Martinez, Ronald Koeman, Sam Allardyce and Marco Silva, means the figure for managerial severance pay alone since 2016 will be more than £40million.
How can you burn through six managers, two
directors of football (Brands and Steve Walsh) and half a billion in transfer fees and wages without having anything to show for it other than anger and recrimination? It was only six weeks ago that Moshiri was pledging his full support to Benitez, telling talkSPORT that ‘he needs time
to make his mark on the squad’. It was only two weeks ago he was given £30m to buy two full backs, Vitalii Mykolenko from Dynamo Kiev and Nathan Patterson from Rangers.
An insight into the curious way Everton go about things in the transfer window, however, was illustrated by the loan arrival of Anwar El Ghazi from Aston Villa. The winger had not even been a consideration until he was proposed during negotiations for the sale of Lucas Digne.
That deal was greeted with dismay by fans, who were furious that Benitez had fallen out with the France international but, within the dressing room, not too many tears were shed over Digne, who was described by one source as the ‘kind of player who, in his head, never has a bad game’.
But how did Digne going end up with El Ghazi arriving? Benitez insisted last Friday that Moshiri had not imposed the transfer on him but, increasingly, nothing makes sense about this club under Moshiri, who seems more preoccupied by image than substance.
Why sanction the £270,000-aweek signing of James Rodriguez in September 2020, for example, when his peak days were behind him and the club had been making noises that they were pursuing youthful footballers with potential?
The Colombian spent much of last April and May making it clear at the club’s Finch Farm training base that he could not wait to be on holiday and Ancelotti even allowed him to leave before the final game of the season, a 5-0 collapse at Manchester City. What does that say for discipline and standards?
BENITEz had issues to address and it was risible to think he could correct them immediately when he was only able to spend £1.7m last summer on Demarai Gray — who has been an shining light — and four free transfers. He made that point regularly and clearly.
You must have sympathy for a man who plenty at Finch Farm described as being fanatical about his work, polite and courteous. On the other hand, it cannot be sugar-coated that Everton’s situation got worse under his watch.
Changes were made to the medical department — the wellrespected Danny Donachie left in the autumn — and to the structure. The academy is miserably under-performing and there are doubts over the future of director David Unsworth.
It is why this is about more than just Benitez. He carries the can but the rot is deep-rooted, so much so that those with long-term knowledge of the club have warned that the threat of relegation is real.
This is Everton’s worst moment of the 21st century. What Moshiri does next will define the future.