Everton FC: Ex-coach Rafa Benítez complains about lack of money – relegation is imminent

First interview since termination

Everton FC is 19th in the list of the most valuable squads in the world and 448 million euros is enough for 8th place in the Premier League – but in the table, which is based on points, coach Frank Lampard’s team is just one point ahead of the relegation zone. Rafael Benítez, who started the season with the “Toffees” and is partly responsible for this placement, speaks for the first time after his release in mid-January about his short time at the Liverpool club.

“Looking back, it’s easy to have a different opinion,” said the Spaniard in an interview with “The Athletic‘, led by Newcastle legend Alan Shearer. “But after the talks I had with Everton and their ambitions, it was the right thing to do. In retrospect, well, we didn’t have the money, we had injuries and other problems,” said Benítez, who averaged just one point per game in the league.

A look at the transfer market database shows that the Spaniard was the first Everton manager since 2011 to have little financial leeway on the transfer market. “We signed five players for less than £2m and worked with what we had,” Benítez describes the 2021 summer transfer window. Only for Demarai Gray (25), who came from Bayer Leverkusen for €2m, a fee flowed – newcomers like Andros Townsend (30), Asmir Begovic (34) and Salomón Rondón (32) were free of charge. In the previous years since 2016, the squad has been strengthened for around €600m while taking in around €310m.

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Arrivals and departures with replacementTo the transfer history
When Shearer asked if he knew at the time of signing that he would be short on cash, Benítez replied, “No. No no no no no. At the start it was a big project with the prospect of spending money. That changed when we couldn’t sell players. It’s complicated when the players have big contracts and nobody wants to buy them.”

Benítez: Everton FC “fired us” 6 points from the relegation zone

Benítez made the best of what was available and started the season strong: The “Toffees” took 14 points from the first seven league games and finished in 5th place. Then key players like Dominic Calvert-Lewin (25) and Richarlison (24) got injured, Gylfi Sigurdsson (32) was unavailable and “that complicated things and made for the results on the pitch.” Out of the next twelve Premier League games should only be won – on January 16 Everton parted ways with Benítez.

“They fired us when we were six points clear of the relegation zone and six points behind tenth. All the important players were back,” Benitez said, particularly regretting the timing of his dismissal. Before leaving, he transferred Lucas Digne (28) to Aston Villa for €30m and brought in Vitaliy Mykolenko (22) and Nathan Patterson (20) for €37.5m and Anwar El Ghazi (26) on loan. With these newcomers plus Dele Alli (26) and Donny van de Beek (25), successor Lampard was able to start.

The Chelsea icon scored just 0.91 points per game on eleven matchdays with the Liverpool club, which was strengthened in winter – even less than his predecessor Benítez. Everton is a shit show for Shearer. The former top striker did not mince his words and described the “Toffees” as a “monument to waste and an example of how not to do it (…), since Farhad Moshiri (club boss, editor’s note) came on board in 2016”.

Benítez, who won the Champions League with Liverpool, twice Spanish champions and UEFA Cup winners with Valencia and helped Newcastle United to promotion, “sincerely wishes his former club to stay up there and I think they will pack it because they have enough quality in the squad. They brought in five new players in January and the key players who were injured at the time are back (…) – it’s a new team”.

All remaining programs
7 game days leftTo overview
Duels with FC Liverpool, Chelsea, Leicester City and Arsenal await Everton on the remaining seven matchdays, making it possibly one of the toughest remaining programs in the league.

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