2021/22 Rafael Benitez

[davek]

He shouldn’t be because he’s rubbish, dave

but I hope he turns this current spell around

however, we have Spurs (under Conte), City and Brentford coming up before we play our dear old neighbours at Goodison.

I think he could do if we get heavily beat in that derby and there’d been no signs of improvement in the games prior to that

None of that matters.

Benitez wont be sacked this season unless we enter a relegation fight in the new year...HIGHLY unlikely I'd say.

 

[davek]

Can make them worse, which many are now.

How can he make worse players we all KNEW to be terrible at CB?

 

[nsno-chris]

We're level on points with Leicester whose defence isn't great either. Do they have our injury problems?
If we can show the same spirit as in second half we'll be OK.
Get the cheque book out in January.

It’s not even that simple, it’s the tactical ineptitude that has been show .

We were getting absolutely mullered through the middle by Watford and he did nothing to try and resolve it, sat back and watched it all unfold

Going into Wolves, did he try to remedy it? Nope, he though the answer was to replace Davies with a player who hasn’t played a professional game for the best part of 2.5 years; leaving him massively exposed.

And then to top it off he’s employed this ridiculous zonal marking system; the only thing that we had right last year was our ability to defend deep and off set pieces that’s been binned. It’s identical to Silva, he was so set on his ways he wouldn’t change for the world

He’s a tactical dinosaur yet some picture him as this genius because he spent the best part of £300m at RS to get them second once.

He’s achieved nothing at any club that he needs to build up, he had the same number of points as Steve Bruce at Newcastle ffs.

It’s utterly shambolic

 

[Adscum]

There are two schools of thought. 1) That we have spent £500m+ so preposterously badly that 3 injuries down the spine of the team turn us into looking like relegation fodder - and that the logical thing to do is blame the people who've built that squad over a number of years, rather than the fella who's been here for 10 games. 2) The wrong one.

 

[Dixieslaces]

It is though!

Potter/Brighton have won 1 in 6
Frank/Brentford have won 1 in 5

Neither have had the injury problems we've had to key players

DCL
Richarlison
Doucoure
Mina

Those 4 simply can not be replaced with our current squad and Godfrey is a shell of the player he was (COVID).

Fans just need patience and to accept what we at present - a midtable club that goes on bad runs of form.

Forget looking at the likes of Chelsea/Leicester/RS winning 5 out of 6 we aint that level nowhere near and neither will we be with a new manager.

Its not being a happy clapper its looking at the last 6-7 seasons and seeing a pattern with these players.

Yes the manager has made mistakes so far but every manager does there is no white knight / silver bullet that turns everything perfect overnight and we need to get out of the sack sack sack mentality especially when we are cash strapped FFP speaking to back a new manager adequately enough.

If you want to see positive change sack Marcel Brands / remove Kenwright and thats a start.

I would perhaps look higher up the chain of command too.

Some good points to be fair but we should not be comparing ourselves to those 2 clubs, no disrespect to them and in all honesty it is where we find ourselves as a club and that is the case in point. With the investment we have had circa 500 Million none of those clubs are "in our league" but here we are having to see what their performances are like to try and justify Benitez appointment.

it is a truly dire time, only Everton could get what they wanted, in terms of a Billionaire and balls it up so badly.

top down change is needed, I will bang the drum on Mosh again, as he is culpable in no small way for what we are witnessing and there is no way Everton are TOO BIG to go down, that mentality will be our downfall.

 

[davek]

Dave, you are sawing off the branch on which you are perched.

One the one hand you point out, correctly, that it is hard to get a tune of this squad of misfits.

On the other hand you praise Benitez for “galvanising” them into a much improved secind half display.

Ergo it is possible to get them to play better than they did in that horrible first half.

He should have had them “galvanised” from the getgo…especially in light of last week’s fiasco.

And yes, he can’t legislate for Godfrey‘s role in that second goal.

But he can legislate for the atrocious defending his tactics at set pieces produce.

His set up at corners is killing us every game.

That change in performance between 1st and 2nd half was nothing to do with ability and all to do with showing more character. That's what the manager was able to do at HT: tell them to show character after an appalling first 45 minutes.

Let's not forget the hierarchy of blame here:

Board (particularly Moshiri)

Brands

Players

Manager

 

[Kev The Rat]

That change in performance between 1st and 2nd half was nothing to do with ability and all to do with showing more character. That's what the manager was able to do at HT: tell them to show character after an appalling forst 45 minutes.

Let's not forget the hierarchy of blame here:

Board (particularly Moshiri)

Brands

Players

Manager

I agree the Board is at the top of the list of criminals, however the low hanging fruit will always have their feet held to the fire first. The idea that Moshiri will hold himself to account is fanciful.

 

[ToffeeTim]

There are two schools of thought. 1) That we have spent £500m+ so preposterously badly that 3 injuries down the spine of the team turn us into looking like relegation fodder - and that the logical thing to do is blame the people who've built that squad over a number of years, rather than the fella who's been here for 10 games. 2) The wrong one.

3) Blame the players, the manager's ineptitude and the board for appointing someone so divisive it's bordering on ludicrous.

People can't seem to understand nuance. I will blame the manager because I fundamentally think he's the wrong choice. But to suggest that means I'm not blaming the players or this manager is total nonsense. Everyone is to blame - EVERYONE.

The issue is that nothing changes until the division is healed and the club can unite again, and that only happens with a managerial change as a first step. We all warned the Benitez fan club how this would pan out. It's not because we are intelligent (certainly not in my case), but even the smallest piece of common sense pointed in this direction. Point your anger at the board as much as you want, but Moshiri isn't going to sack himself. What board has ever removed themselves?

Change now before things get worse. Because they will get much worse quickly if we don't.

 

[ToffeeTim]

I agree the Board is at the top of the list of criminals, however the low hanging fruit will always have their feet held to the fire first. The idea that Moshiri will hold himself to account is fanciful.

I don't know what's going on here, but yes I agree with you Kev

Of course the board are to blame, but what board sacks themselves? This is a ridiculous argument from some. The only way the board starts to fix the problem is by replacing the manager. People can stand outside Goodison and protest 24/7 but the board and owner are going nowhere.

 

[davek]

I agree the Board is at the top of the list of criminals, however the low hanging fruit will always have their feet held to the fire first. The idea that Moshiri will hold himself to account is fanciful.

There is no way whatsoever that Benitez will be blamed at boardroom level for the last 3 defeats and the injury crisis. No way.

If we're into the new year in a relegation struggle then I'd reluctantly agree he had to go (though it'd be harsh on him given the circumstances he has struggled with). But that scenario WONT arrive.

 

[hallamblue]

He did change it though, but he's getting zero credit for it, which is kind of my point

If that Gordon header goes in then it's 2-2 and we nick a point. At what point does the change make up for the bad start?

With football supporters the answer seems to be "never" based on how we talk on here

This isn't even a thing unique to Benitez either

All of our previous managers dealt with it as well

When the opposition manager gives a press conference telling you how he's going to beat you and you watch it unfold in front of you, and get overrun, concede a goal which is fortunately disallowed, watch your players look visibly confused on the pitch, then concede a goal, still do nothing, and then concede another goal before reacting, I don't think you can garner too much credit. We could have been 5 down after 30 minutes, having conceded 5 in 15 minutes in our last game.

 

[MACCA75]

The disallowed goal was a golden opportunity to change system as it was clear as day we were being overrun.

He waited til we were 2-0 down. Brands and Moshiri have a hell of a lot to answer for, but some things lay squarely on the manager.

 

[Mikey_Fitzgerald]

Oh great, we're back to the just be thankful we didn't do a Leeds argument. At this point you know people have given up.

Supporting this manager means you do not expect success. We will never be successful under this environment. Benitez and success are two mutually exclusive things. One will not happen with the other. Can we please show some sort of standards as a fan base?

There's a difference between ambition and delusion

Our first 11 is decent. Our squad depth is non-existent

FFP has meant we can't sign players

Getting a new manager isn't going to magically fix that

It shows no lack of ambition to be honest and say "We're in a bad spot now that we need to get through, but when we do we can clear out the deadwood and sign better players so we can kick on"

If I thought a new manager would fix things to any demonstrable degree then fair enough, but I can't think of many other managers who could get better out of this lot right now mid-season

We had one of the greatest managers of all-time in the dugout for us last season and even he struggled to get anything out of this lot

Until the deadwood gets cleared any manager we have is fighting an immediate uphill battle

If we'd brought in someone like Potter or even Nuno then there wouldn't be calls for a sacking right now if we were on the same amount of points

Benitez of course made a rod for his own back in that regard by not showing contrition for his prior comments when he came here, but the fact remains that it's WAY too early to demanding his head right now. A less divisive appointment wouldn't be getting these shots in the first week of November after the start we've had

We were doing okay when we had the full strength squad. Not amazing, but we were beating the weaker teams and giving the better teams a game

I see no reason why that can't happen again once they are back

Benitez is not infallible and there are fair things to criticise him for, but some are going WAY over the top to call for a sacking right now

 

[BlueToff]

None of that matters.

Benitez wont be sacked this season unless we enter a relegation fight in the new year...HIGHLY unlikely I'd say.

If the fans turn it won't be pretty. It was bad enough last week.

The footy is crap.

 

[davek]

The disallowed goal was a golden opportunity to change system as it was clear as day we were being overrun.

He waited til we were 2-0 down. Brands and Moshiri have a hell of a lot to answer for, but some things lay squarely on the manager.

He should have dragged Gbamin off and put Delph on. You are right: a message - ANY MESSAGE - needed to be made to the team that they were outrageously bad and it was unacceptable.