Premier League 2021-22
Re: Premier League 2021-22
So after getting their match against Spurs cancelled on Sunday, on Monday the Arse loan out Mari. Absolute disgrace!!
“Never argue with an idiot. They will only bring you down to their level and beat you with experience.”
― George Carlin
“The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those who speak it.” -George Orwell.
― George Carlin
“The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those who speak it.” -George Orwell.
Re: Premier League 2021-22
Yesterday, there was a detailed report in The Times about Benitez and his time at Everton. It is quite revealing and provides a few new insights about recent events. Its behind a paywall, so I will copy here in full, if anyone is interested.
Rafa Benítez sacked: Everton’s troubles are deeply entrenched – Spaniard had impossible job
The new manager will inherit uncaring squad and impatient board at Goodison Park
Shortly before 3pm, Everton announced the end of an error.
Little that had transpired over the course of Rafa Benítez’s time at Goodison Park ultimately came as a surprise, save perhaps that it took seven months for his tenure to unravel amid a backdrop of acrimony.
One win in his past 13 league matches, culminating in yesterday’s debacle away to Norwich City, constituted a worse record than the damning sequences that prompted Farhad Moshiri, the owner, to jettison many of the Spaniard’s predecessors.
When the trigger was finally pulled it came after an abject defeat in which angry, disillusioned supporters made their resentment clear once more. One had even lurched on to the pitch and tried to reach the manager so that he could personally voice his displeasure. Revolting off the pitch, Everton have been the same on it.
“To put it simply — we need to be competing at the top end of the league and to be winning trophies,” Moshiri had said in June when ignoring the obvious misgivings his pursuit of the former Liverpool manager aroused among supporters.
That Everton sit in 16th position and are sleepwalking into a relegation battle having won six points from the past 39 available, shows just how savagely reality has bitten since. Establishing any kind of stability proved beyond Benítez.
There is no doubt that injuries conspired against him. Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Richarlison, who until this season had rarely been absent and certainly not for long periods, have played only 282 minutes together. In that time they scored five goals. Last season, they were responsible for half of Everton’s 68 goals.
Other absentees also undermined momentum after an early-season surge that brought 14 points from seven matches.
Benítez needed everything to go perfectly, otherwise the divisive nature of his appointment — one that upset the board let alone supporters — meant that many would never offer him any mitigation.
Clearly, he should have got more out of the team and his reputation of being able to organise sides has taken a hit. The forensic coaching approach that initially bore fruit had lost all impact by the end. His micro-managing proved draining. Now the debate centres upon whether his methods have become outdated.
The same mistakes were repeated with Everton fallible at set pieces, prone to individual errors and utterly reactive having conceded the first goal in 16 of their 22 games in all competitions.
The performances became an eyesore and prompted questions over Benítez’s ability to inspire. Defeats by the three promoted clubs — Watford, Brentford and Norwich — highlighted the malaise.
The only victories since beating Norwich in September came against Arsenal and Hull City in the FA Cup and were by virtue of long-range strikes from Demarai Gray and Andros Townsend.
Relying on bolts out of the blue was not conducive for long-term progress. There was no discernible pattern to their play and certainly nothing approaching the vision that Benítez preached.
The irony is that Everton’s best players have been Gray and Townsend, whom Benítez bought on the shoestring budget with which he was forced to work in the summer because of the transfer excesses of his predecessors.
That was not the plan. When he was interviewed on a yacht in Sardinia by Moshiri, and business partner Alisher Usmanov, the conversations were about unlimited budgets.
Premier League profit and sustainability rules meant the landscape quickly changed, necessitating the departure of James Rodríguez, who earned £10 million a year. The portrayal of Benítez forcing out a mercurial talent was skewed regardless of the fact he was not a fan of the Colombian. Yet it suited the upper echelons at Everton to stay silent and let Benítez carry the can.
The progress of Anthony Gordon has also come under the watch of Benítez. But it is easy to say that the manager should have got more out of the squad. And it is easy to write that, too, because inquests into the failures of Ronald Koeman, Sam Allardyce and Marco Silva (Carlo Ancelotti was also heading that way before he quit) laboured the same point.
That brings the focus on Everton’s hierarchy but also the players, who may summon some fight in the short term under a new general but are likely to let him down over time.
After the limp 3-0 defeat away to Manchester City in November, during which they had one shot on target and 22 per cent of possession, one player approached Benítez and wondered out loud how much the squad cared. More revealing than that is that the same misgivings had been uttered to another manager previously.
The propensity for this group to shrink in the spotlight was clear, especially when there was a ready-made scapegoat in place to shield them from the flak.
When Benítez spoke about fixing the problems that have anchored Everton for years, the flimsy mentality of the group was something that would have been in his thoughts.
The spat with Lucas Digne might have been viewed through a different prism by supporters had the manager been more popular. There have been fans who have wanted the man at the helm to stand up to those in the dressing room, but Digne was able to down tools, force through a move to Aston Villa and have the temerity to call out the manager publicly for forcing his exit and still have the backing of the majority.
The irony is that Digne was not a big favourite within the dressing room. “You can’t tell him anything. It’s never his fault and he has never had a bad game,” said one source.
Similarly, Benítez had demanded that every area of the club needed to raise their standards, a plea that dovetailed neatly with what many supporters have been seeking. The departures of the director of football Marcel Brands and the head of medical services Danny Donachie have been collateral damage.
On the one hand, Moshiri backed his manager on those calls. However, Everton’s January signings of Vitaliy Mykolenko from Dynamo Kiev for £17 million and Nathan Patterson for £12 million from Rangers were scouted before Benítez’s arrival. The loan deal for Anwar El Ghazi from Aston Villa was presented to Everton by an agent as part of the discussions around Digne.
That again shows the dysfunctional nature of how Everton continue to operate even amid the strategic review that was implemented after Brands’s departure. But none of the incoming transfers were Benítez-led, which is why the idea that he could not be sacked because of January’s deals does not hold water.
At Carrow Road, there was bemusement among those who hold power at the club that Richarlison and Townsend started on the substitutes’ bench, after returning to the squad following time out injured.
That Philippe Coutinho scored on his debut for Aston Villa — a player who had been offered to Everton but was declined — also constituted a black mark but that only highlights the short-term thinking within the organisation.
The insistence on persisting with Salomón Rondón showed Benítez’s stubbornness, but that should not come as any great surprise.
When Steve Bruce was sacked by Newcastle United in late October, the new Saudi Arabian owners at St James’s Park wanted to take Benítez back to the club where he was fêted between 2016-19. He declined. Not once, but twice, because he had given his word to Everton. Principles that would get him nowhere.
Benítez will probably accept now that this was an impossible job and it would be interesting to hear whether he felt he managed in his true style or, because he had no constituency, tried to please some people.
As ever, the problems with Everton are ingrained.
It is worth remembering that as recently as September the findings of a survey commissioned by Denise Barrett-Baxendale, the chief executive officer, suggested that nine out of ten supporters “feel positive about Everton’s leadership, governance and decision-making”. This at a time when the club have not won a trophy for 27 years and have squandered £500 million on transfers since 2016.
At the time the survey results sounded like twaddle and have quickly been exposed as such. The banners, the protests, the general air of gloom are not simply because a 61-year-old manager who enjoyed success across Stanley Park could not raise a tune from a dishevelled squad.
Yet here we are again. The ball is back in Moshiri’s court and he is now looking for his seventh permanent manager in six years.
The next instalment of this long-running soap opera must have an ending that no one sees coming.
Rafa Benítez sacked: Everton’s troubles are deeply entrenched – Spaniard had impossible job
The new manager will inherit uncaring squad and impatient board at Goodison Park
Shortly before 3pm, Everton announced the end of an error.
Little that had transpired over the course of Rafa Benítez’s time at Goodison Park ultimately came as a surprise, save perhaps that it took seven months for his tenure to unravel amid a backdrop of acrimony.
One win in his past 13 league matches, culminating in yesterday’s debacle away to Norwich City, constituted a worse record than the damning sequences that prompted Farhad Moshiri, the owner, to jettison many of the Spaniard’s predecessors.
When the trigger was finally pulled it came after an abject defeat in which angry, disillusioned supporters made their resentment clear once more. One had even lurched on to the pitch and tried to reach the manager so that he could personally voice his displeasure. Revolting off the pitch, Everton have been the same on it.
“To put it simply — we need to be competing at the top end of the league and to be winning trophies,” Moshiri had said in June when ignoring the obvious misgivings his pursuit of the former Liverpool manager aroused among supporters.
That Everton sit in 16th position and are sleepwalking into a relegation battle having won six points from the past 39 available, shows just how savagely reality has bitten since. Establishing any kind of stability proved beyond Benítez.
There is no doubt that injuries conspired against him. Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Richarlison, who until this season had rarely been absent and certainly not for long periods, have played only 282 minutes together. In that time they scored five goals. Last season, they were responsible for half of Everton’s 68 goals.
Other absentees also undermined momentum after an early-season surge that brought 14 points from seven matches.
Benítez needed everything to go perfectly, otherwise the divisive nature of his appointment — one that upset the board let alone supporters — meant that many would never offer him any mitigation.
Clearly, he should have got more out of the team and his reputation of being able to organise sides has taken a hit. The forensic coaching approach that initially bore fruit had lost all impact by the end. His micro-managing proved draining. Now the debate centres upon whether his methods have become outdated.
The same mistakes were repeated with Everton fallible at set pieces, prone to individual errors and utterly reactive having conceded the first goal in 16 of their 22 games in all competitions.
The performances became an eyesore and prompted questions over Benítez’s ability to inspire. Defeats by the three promoted clubs — Watford, Brentford and Norwich — highlighted the malaise.
The only victories since beating Norwich in September came against Arsenal and Hull City in the FA Cup and were by virtue of long-range strikes from Demarai Gray and Andros Townsend.
Relying on bolts out of the blue was not conducive for long-term progress. There was no discernible pattern to their play and certainly nothing approaching the vision that Benítez preached.
The irony is that Everton’s best players have been Gray and Townsend, whom Benítez bought on the shoestring budget with which he was forced to work in the summer because of the transfer excesses of his predecessors.
That was not the plan. When he was interviewed on a yacht in Sardinia by Moshiri, and business partner Alisher Usmanov, the conversations were about unlimited budgets.
Premier League profit and sustainability rules meant the landscape quickly changed, necessitating the departure of James Rodríguez, who earned £10 million a year. The portrayal of Benítez forcing out a mercurial talent was skewed regardless of the fact he was not a fan of the Colombian. Yet it suited the upper echelons at Everton to stay silent and let Benítez carry the can.
The progress of Anthony Gordon has also come under the watch of Benítez. But it is easy to say that the manager should have got more out of the squad. And it is easy to write that, too, because inquests into the failures of Ronald Koeman, Sam Allardyce and Marco Silva (Carlo Ancelotti was also heading that way before he quit) laboured the same point.
That brings the focus on Everton’s hierarchy but also the players, who may summon some fight in the short term under a new general but are likely to let him down over time.
After the limp 3-0 defeat away to Manchester City in November, during which they had one shot on target and 22 per cent of possession, one player approached Benítez and wondered out loud how much the squad cared. More revealing than that is that the same misgivings had been uttered to another manager previously.
The propensity for this group to shrink in the spotlight was clear, especially when there was a ready-made scapegoat in place to shield them from the flak.
When Benítez spoke about fixing the problems that have anchored Everton for years, the flimsy mentality of the group was something that would have been in his thoughts.
The spat with Lucas Digne might have been viewed through a different prism by supporters had the manager been more popular. There have been fans who have wanted the man at the helm to stand up to those in the dressing room, but Digne was able to down tools, force through a move to Aston Villa and have the temerity to call out the manager publicly for forcing his exit and still have the backing of the majority.
The irony is that Digne was not a big favourite within the dressing room. “You can’t tell him anything. It’s never his fault and he has never had a bad game,” said one source.
Similarly, Benítez had demanded that every area of the club needed to raise their standards, a plea that dovetailed neatly with what many supporters have been seeking. The departures of the director of football Marcel Brands and the head of medical services Danny Donachie have been collateral damage.
On the one hand, Moshiri backed his manager on those calls. However, Everton’s January signings of Vitaliy Mykolenko from Dynamo Kiev for £17 million and Nathan Patterson for £12 million from Rangers were scouted before Benítez’s arrival. The loan deal for Anwar El Ghazi from Aston Villa was presented to Everton by an agent as part of the discussions around Digne.
That again shows the dysfunctional nature of how Everton continue to operate even amid the strategic review that was implemented after Brands’s departure. But none of the incoming transfers were Benítez-led, which is why the idea that he could not be sacked because of January’s deals does not hold water.
At Carrow Road, there was bemusement among those who hold power at the club that Richarlison and Townsend started on the substitutes’ bench, after returning to the squad following time out injured.
That Philippe Coutinho scored on his debut for Aston Villa — a player who had been offered to Everton but was declined — also constituted a black mark but that only highlights the short-term thinking within the organisation.
The insistence on persisting with Salomón Rondón showed Benítez’s stubbornness, but that should not come as any great surprise.
When Steve Bruce was sacked by Newcastle United in late October, the new Saudi Arabian owners at St James’s Park wanted to take Benítez back to the club where he was fêted between 2016-19. He declined. Not once, but twice, because he had given his word to Everton. Principles that would get him nowhere.
Benítez will probably accept now that this was an impossible job and it would be interesting to hear whether he felt he managed in his true style or, because he had no constituency, tried to please some people.
As ever, the problems with Everton are ingrained.
It is worth remembering that as recently as September the findings of a survey commissioned by Denise Barrett-Baxendale, the chief executive officer, suggested that nine out of ten supporters “feel positive about Everton’s leadership, governance and decision-making”. This at a time when the club have not won a trophy for 27 years and have squandered £500 million on transfers since 2016.
At the time the survey results sounded like twaddle and have quickly been exposed as such. The banners, the protests, the general air of gloom are not simply because a 61-year-old manager who enjoyed success across Stanley Park could not raise a tune from a dishevelled squad.
Yet here we are again. The ball is back in Moshiri’s court and he is now looking for his seventh permanent manager in six years.
The next instalment of this long-running soap opera must have an ending that no one sees coming.
Talk is cheap
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Dannie Boy
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Re: Premier League 2021-22
An interesting and thought provoking analogy of what is wrong at Everton - who indeed would want to accept the poisoned chalice!!
Re: Premier League 2021-22
The good old days!Dannie Boy wrote: ↑Mon Jan 17, 2022 7:40 pm PS. And my boots were hard leather that went over your ankles and had leather studs nailed to the sole - sometimes the nails found there way into your feet!!
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I had a pair of these playing in my teens. Those plastic fins stuck on the front promised me extra power and swerve. What a scam that was!
- IMG_20220118_070303.jpg (52.4 KiB) Viewed 277 times
I don't trust children. They're here to replace us.
Re: Premier League 2021-22
Anyone fessing up to buying Alan Ball's swivel boots? 
- BmGKArnIQAAyU4x.jpg (60.03 KiB) Viewed 271 times
“Never argue with an idiot. They will only bring you down to their level and beat you with experience.”
― George Carlin
“The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those who speak it.” -George Orwell.
― George Carlin
“The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those who speak it.” -George Orwell.
Re: Premier League 2021-22
Did they work as advertised?
Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. Source
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Dannie Boy
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- Joined: Wed Jan 13, 2010 8:12 pm
- Location: Closer to Cha Am than Hua Hin
Re: Premier League 2021-22
Looks like an accident waiting to happen!!PeteC wrote:Did they work as advertised?
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Re: Premier League 2021-22
No, they turned your hair ginger and made you talk in a high pitched voice
“Never argue with an idiot. They will only bring you down to their level and beat you with experience.”
― George Carlin
“The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those who speak it.” -George Orwell.
― George Carlin
“The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those who speak it.” -George Orwell.
-
thecolonel
- Legend
- Posts: 2201
- Joined: Sat Oct 11, 2014 3:34 am
Re: Premier League 2021-22
I wanted a pair but my Dad told me they were "an accident waiting to happen!!"Dannie Boy wrote:Looks like an accident waiting to happen!!PeteC wrote:Did they work as advertised?
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Maybe Dannie Boy is my Dad!
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Re: Premier League 2021-22
Today's paper.
(I'm not commenting any more on the matter, what's done is done, just sharing the day's sports section)
(I'm not commenting any more on the matter, what's done is done, just sharing the day's sports section
)I don't trust children. They're here to replace us.
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thecolonel
- Legend
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- Joined: Sat Oct 11, 2014 3:34 am
Re: Premier League 2021-22
Seriously this is cheating plain and simple. And I'd say the same if my team did it.Lost wrote:Today's paper.
(I'm not commenting any more on the matter, what's done is done, just sharing the day's sports section)
This years league has been spoiled already
On a lighter note, I suggest all points null and void and we start again!
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Dannie Boy
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- Location: Closer to Cha Am than Hua Hin
Re: Premier League 2021-22
I thought I was your younger brother!!thecolonel wrote: ↑Tue Jan 18, 2022 6:36 pmI wanted a pair but my Dad told me they were "an accident waiting to happen!!"Dannie Boy wrote:Looks like an accident waiting to happen!!PeteC wrote:Did they work as advertised?
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Maybe Dannie Boy is my Dad!
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arcadianagain
- Ace
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- Joined: Fri Apr 26, 2013 11:58 pm
Re: Premier League 2021-22
Boo hoo, the Mirror have always been anti Arsenal, never mind, I`m sure Spurs will exact revenge when they eventually get to play the game, won`t they?
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dtaai-maai
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- Location: UK, Robin Hood country
Re: Premier League 2021-22
Really? I had no idea any newspaper was 'anti' any football team, how odd. To be fair though, most non-gooners are anti-Arsenal!
This is the way