Fan Comment

From Hollywood to the Gates of Hell

“You show me Regan’s identical twin – same face, same voice, same smell, same everything down to the way she dots her i’s – and still I’d know in a second it wasn’t really her! I’d just know it, I’d know it in my gut, and I’m telling you that thing upstairs is not my daughter!” – Chris McNeil to Father Karras in The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty

After 30 days of the most inept managerial search imaginable, with numerous names thrown into the hat to replace the latest of Farhad Moshiri's "Hollywood Manager" failure, Everton have ended up with an ex-manager of the evil empire across the park. Following one catastrophic managerial appointment after another under the bungling ownership of Farhad Moshiri, one would think it could not get any worse. But, in true Everton fashion, we have out-done ourselves by employing a man who called us a 'small club'.

Rafa Benitez is seen as safe pair of hands, a manager with Premier League experience. Never mind he managed across the park, never mind he has not been successful for over a decade, never mind he actually took Newcastle down, never mind he plays one-dimensional defensive football. Was Benítez (it is actually hard to keep saying his name!) the man our supposed Director of Football had at the top of his list of candidates? Or even had on his list to replace Ancelotti? I don’t think so.

After Moshiri’s courtship of his first choice, Nuno Espirito Santo, hit the buffers, he quickly consulted with his puppet-master friend, Alisher Usmanov, and moved on to Benitez. What must Mr Blueblood Bill Kenwright be thinking?? Or our e-mail friendly Chief Executive???

Blueblood Bill, for one, has been briefing that Benitez was not his choice. It seems Moshiri jettisoned the brain-dead “Hollywood Manager” strategy, listened to Uncle Alisher, and went back to the equally brain-dead safe pair of hands roll of the dice with Benitez.

This has nothing to do with ambition. It has everything to do with a safe pair of midtable Premier League hands who won’t scare off any potential funders of the new stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock. We are sacrificing any football ambition on the altar of a new stadium and the whim of an owner who thinks he knows best, but actually knows nothing.

We are now, after our second Hollywood Manager escapade in Carlo Magnifico went up in flames, back in the era of Sam Allardyce. We have in Benitez a manager who plays God-awful football, has not done anything significant in over a decade, and who will have us kicking around midtable, while bearing the badge of unforgivable sin, having managed the great Satan.

When you look at Benitez's managerial record, it is not especially anything to write home about; over the last decade, it has been an absolute failure. Yes, he had Valencia… [let's skip over the next bit]; since 2011, it has been very underwhelming. He had a good squad at Napoli but all he could deliver was a Coppa Italia and Super Coppa – not the greatest achievements in Italian footballing eyes. In the league and in Europe, he failed with them.

A half-season at Chelsea where he inherited a good team mismanaged by Di Matteo – how lucky can you get? – saw a Europa League triumph. But against this we have Internazionale: failed (sacked); Real Madrid: failed (sacked). Then we have his time at Newcastle United. What did he do at Newcastle? He got them relegated.

After bringing them back to the Premier League, he embarked on the most unimaginative defensive football one could think of, before having a bust-up with owner Mike Ashley and leaving. Steve Bruce, it has to be noted, has done just as good a job, if not better than Benitez, at Newcastle.

Meanwhile, Rafa took the Yuan, or Renminbi (take your pick of which name you use for the Chinese currency), and moved on to the Chinese Super League at Dalian Professional. Surely a supposedly elite manager could succeed in China? But just 12 wins from 38 games proved the opposite; however, it did highlight his limitations as a manager and irrelevance in the modern game. He left Dalian by mutual consent, but his bank balance must have looked good.

So, besides the great sin of managing across the park, his managerial record since he left the evil empire is, to be frank, underwhelming at best. Benitez has also over time morphed into an incredibly defensive manager. Nothing wrong with that if it brings results but, under him, it certainly does not.

Benitez, like the buffoon who has just departed to Real Madrid, is a manager who has not moved on with the times and has been left way behind by the modern game. Just another managerial dinosaur, à la Allardyce and Ancelotti, who has absolute zero relevance to today’s game.

Another concern with the appointment of Benitez (as if we needed one), is what do we have a Director of Football for? Why have a Director of Football if every manager search is led by Moshiri himself, with Blueblood Bill Kenwright in the background putting his own oar in, and as it seems with the appointment of Benitez, the grand puppet-master Usmanov also having a say?

This appointment reeks of dim-witted billionaires thinking they know more about football than the actual supporters. They hold us in contempt, and don’t care a jot what we think.

Marcel Brands, as with the previous appointment of the disaster that was Carlo Magnifico, has been side-lined. Instead of the Director of Football leading the search for a new manager, a manager who he could work in tandem with, he has again seemingly had little, if any say in the appointment of Benitez.

Will the notoriously political Benitez work in harmony with Brands? In one word: No, he won’t. With Benitez, it's either his way or the highway. We will have the same situation as under Ancelotti, a split and a non-working relationship between the Director of Football and the manager.

Who will get the ear of the dreamer Moshiri out of this duo? Well obviously, as was the case with his last Hollywood manager fiasco, it will be Benitez. Brands really should now question his position at the club but, with the cushy number he is on, I doubt it.

I seriously question the way Moshiri has run our club since he arrived with a bag full of cash and a suitcase full of failure. Since Moshiri has bought into the Blues, we have lurched from one different sort of manager to another with no strategy or plan of what we actually want to be.

Moshiri listens to no-one but himself (with the possible addition of Kia Joorabchian and Jorge Mendes), Blueblood Bill Kenwright (but seemingly not on this occasion), and friend and puppet-master, Alisher Usmanov.

With the appointment of Benitez, we have carried on the knee-jerk process of choosing managers, which has been the raison d’etre of Moshiri’s reign. We move from his latest Hollywood disaster movie to another supposedly safe pair of Premier League hands. Where is the plan? Where is the vision? Where is the strategy? Where is the ambition?

Bringing Benitez to the club lacks any sort of plan, vision, strategy or ambition. This appointment will take us only to the giddy heights of midtable at best. But not to worry: Farhad will deliver us a shiny new stadium!!!

Meanwhile, we will watch the most backward defensive football imaginable while hanging around midtable. I’m all for defensive football if it yields results; under Benitez, it won’t. We can also add to this toxic recipe a massive split in the supporter base… What did Moshiri expect? Benitez to be accepted with open arms!!

So, we will be managed by the devil incarnate, and when we all become bored of the predictable football and tactics he is serving up, Moshiri will, after about 12 to 18 months of mediocrity, start to consider employing another manager. (Will it be Hollywood’s third go, Farhad?)

With the departure of the disaster that was Carlo Ancelotti, we had the chance to really assess what sort of team we want to be, and to appoint an ambitious manager who could excite the supporter base and have a real plan, strategy, vision, and the ambition to lead us into the new stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock and the future.

Instead, the board have dragged us to the gates of hell. They have made a Faustian pact with Benitez, selling our soul to a man who will play awful football, take us nowhere, and be gone in about 18 months – or hopefully a lot sooner.

I will still be there supporting the team through thick and thin next season… but this really is as low as it can get. The club took 30 days in a manager search, 'extensive and thorough' they like to spin, and the best they could come up with is Benitez? Incompetence abounds.

This is the worst managerial appointment possible; it divides the supporters, and brings even more well-deserved opprobrium on the underperforming leadership at the club. It shows no consideration for the feelings of the supporters, and is the most divisive, unambitious, backwards and idiotic decision that could ever be imagined from the numskulls who are running our football club.

I can’t wait for the next e-mail from our Chief Executive (they have certainly dried up since the last ridiculous one eulogising our world-class manager and progress!!!). How will you spin this one, Denise!?!

What is the point of giving the keys of Goodison Park to another Ancelotti Mk 2? A man who has no relevance to the modern game, had his day a very long time ago, has caused a civil war among the supporters, and who will take us precisely nowhere?

When all this goes belly up once again, which it inevitably will, it really will be time for the bungling Moshiri to takes his millions and go somewhere else, along with Blueblood Bill and puppet-master Usmanov in tow, and stop inflicting any more managerial nonsense on us.

As Chris McNeil said to Father Karras, I say to you, Bungling Farhad, living-in-the-past Blueblood Bill Kenwright, puppet-master Usmanov, our e-mail friendly Chief Executive, and "I've got no say" Director of Football, Marcel Brands:

“You show me an Everton Manager’s identical twin – same face, same voice, same smell, same everything down to the way he dots his i’s – and still I’d know in a second it wasn’t really an Everton Manager! I’d just know it, I’d know it in my gut, and I’m telling you that thing at Finch Farm is not an Everton Manager!”

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