Halfway through January, the first Premier League manager to step down in 2022 has been born, and he is still a famous coach we are quite familiar with. After a 2-1 defeat to deputy squad leader Norwich on Saturday, Everton announced the day after the match that manager Benitez would be dismissed and that the official replacement would be announced in due course.
The 61-year-old Benitez took office last June and has been playing 22 games in all competitions for Everton in just over half a year, with a win rate of only 31.8%, comparable to his previous coaching of Dalian; among them, the Premier League has won 19 games, 5 wins, 4 draws and 10 losses, only 1 win and 9 losses in the last 13 rounds, and the Toffee is only 6 points away from the relegation zone. Interestingly, this is the second time Thatbez has taken over Ancelotti's position and left the class in six months, the last time in 2015 to take over Real Madrid, also in January of the following year.
Last year he was called out of class
Because of Benitez's experience in charge of Liverpool, some Everton fans are naturally very resistant to him. It's not hard to understand that Benitez was not only the manager of his sworn enemy Liverpool, he also satirized Everton as a "small club", suggesting that he did not deserve to be compared with the team he led. Even after many years, Benitez himself chose to "eat books" to surrender to his mortal enemies, but it did not completely erase some fans' dislike of him.
But Benitez's failure at Everton was not caused by fans' antipathy towards him. Many media and experts have done analysis on this and believe that Everton's problem is not only the manager. Before Benitez, the once-ambitious club had used Koeman, Allardyce, Marco Silva and Ancelotti, which can be said to have all kinds, but except for the manager who actively jumped to Real Madrid, the rest of the club did not end well, and they did not let the team feel like a higher level, which is enough to show that the boss Moshiri's leadership is not wise enough.
With no step-by-step overall plan, Everton's indiscriminate burning of money over the past few years has long been criticized. When Benitez took over, the club could not continue to invest heavily due to the fact that the previous pit was dug too deeply, which also increased the difficulty of coaching the Spaniard. House leaks coincide with overnight rain, toffee injuries this season are serious, the main cadres Calvert Luin, Richarlisson and Ducoure have been absent due to injury, so Bay Everton will inevitably go high and low, after winning 3 wins, drawing 1 draw and 4 rounds of unbeaten in the opening season, it soon entered the rhythm of fighting for relegation.
Perhaps it is precisely because everything is not all the manager's pot, the last time Everton fans shouted the manager's class, the British media also began to ask Benitez directly about his future, the Toffee executives still chose to "stick to it". On December 1 last year, Everton was beaten 4-1 at home by Liverpool, setting a record for the team's biggest home derby loss in 39 years. Many fans were outraged by this, but then the club took the lead in firing former football director Brandes. It also means that the top is willing to give Benitez more time and even more power to salvage the loss.
Empty talk tactics are ugly
Now that more than a month has passed, Everton has not only not gotten any better, but even feels worse, but more precisely, the public's impression of Benitez is worse, which also greatly increases the possibility of tortre-for-taffy coaching. The defeat of Norwich was a trigger, and before that, the Spaniard's behavior, tactical style, etc. had become unbearable. In response, the Daily Mail published a fan's contribution, and the hardcore Toffee fan named Paul Farage, who has been buying Everton season tickets for nearly 40 years, wrote: "It's not all Rafa's fault, but the team's performance in the past few weeks is really unacceptable." A week ago in the FA Cup, he lined up five defenders against Hull City against a Championship side. Then the league against Norwich, a team that has not scored in the Premier League since last November, he even used the same formation. ”
What needs to be corrected here is that losing 1-2 to the vice president in the league, Benitez actually adjusted the starting formation. At least on the surface, Everton's formation should be 442. But the fans' "mistakes" are also excusable, indicating that Benitez's style is already deeply rooted in the hearts of the people - the Spaniard now leads the team to play ugly defensive football, and often can not prevent, the so-called iron barrel can not move sideways leakage.
Interestingly, before losing to Norwich, Benitez had just raised his own position at the pre-match press conference. The "tactical master" said: the formation is only the situation, tactics are the key, the implication is that whether it is 3 defenders, 4 defenders or 5 defenders, they can play a comfortable offensive football. At that time, the Spaniard also pointed out the main point, that is, the players must show more aggression, and the team should be able to raise the intensity from the beginning of the game.
Logically, Benitez is right, but the problem is to put theory into practice on the field, which is another matter. Look at "Professor" Lonnick, although Klopp and Tuchel are in a sense his followers, having drawn a lot of nutrients from his football philosophy, but the effect of the master himself is obviously not as good as that of the apprentice, which is because Longnick's ability to translate theory into reality is not skilled enough, or the environment of Manchester United is not suitable at all.
Benitez did far worse than Ronnick. There are objective factors such as injury impact, but take a closer look at the lineup of Norwich: Calvert Luin has long been injured, Richarlison can also come off the bench, from the paper, Everton is now completely not bad enough to be unusable, and it can even be said that the main offensive force has basically returned to position. As a result, they could not beat Norwich, who had scored only 8 goals in the previous 20 rounds and had the worst attacking power in the league.
"He's creating chaos"
"Everywhere he went, Rafa would create chaos for the club. He is a 'politician' who always blames others and pits some people against another. Amid the criticism of Benitez, former England midfielder Redknapp Jr. gave a rather sharp assessment. This may be a bit extreme, but the Spaniard is sometimes not as "loyal" as his face suggests. Unlike his predecessor, Ancelotti, Benitez does not fall into the category of good old men, although the latter is also as bad at words as the "honest man". The reality is that the Spaniard has always been preoccupied, just as he "refuted" Ferguson with the A4 paper, but now the opponent's grade has been much lower.
In the first week of 2022, Benitez had a verbal fight with Peter Reid, and the latter's "name" was nothing more than Everton's famous man, former Manchester City (30 years ago) and Stoke City manager. Reid lamented after Everton's 2-3 loss to Brighton: "Goodison Park is a big problem and the direction of the club is very worrying. The Spanish coach asked in a subsequent pre-match press conference: "If a player tells you he doesn't want to stay here, what will Mr. Reid say?" Dinier has already told me what he (wants to go) thinking, and then what do you expect the coach to do? ”
Why does Digne want to go? Climbing the branches is a common thing, but it is also true that french left-backs are dissatisfied with Benitez's stereotypical arrangement, and according to the British media, Digne is not the only one who is privately dissatisfied with the manager's tactics. After the iron heart abandoned Digne, the toffee reinforcement was also the right way, the left-back first bought the Ukrainian Mikolenko (below), and the weak reserve right-back position also ate Patterson from the Soviet Super League, but the problem is that it takes time for new signings to integrate, and time and patience have been wasted too much by Benitez.
As a result, letting the manager off the class became a natural choice. Just changing the manager may not solve the problem fundamentally, but will make Everton look like a joke. The team's poor results are ugly to play football is not a day or two, and now just according to the manager's thinking to drum up the transfer market, but immediately changed their minds to change the coach, so why did the club executives go earlier?
This article is written by Yan Yu
This article was originally published in the Sports Plus app
Images are from the web