Hell hath no fury like travelling Everton fans when their team has let them down, and the away section at Brentford on Sunday was particularly volcanic.
This latest 1-0 defeat means Rafa Benitez’s side have taken two points from the last 21 and the impoverished nature of the performance could not have come at a worse time, with free-scoring neighbours Liverpool arriving at Goodison Park on Wednesday.
Benitez, who has been swimming against the tide of public opinion, will be firmly in the spotlight as he tackles his former club for the first time as a Blue but Everton’s problems run deeper — far, far deeper — than an unpopular manager.
Sportsmail analyses what is going wrong.
Rafael Benitez faces greater problems than being an unpopular manager at Everton
The travelling Blues fans turned on their side after suffering a 1-0 defeat to Brentford
RECRUITMENT
There is a basic rule of thumb in football that runs from the bottom to the top: if you have a team with the right players and bring in the right characters, your chances of progress are greatly improved. Everton, for five and a half years, have consistently made mistake after mistake.
Steve Walsh was the club’s first director of football, appointed in the same 2016 summer as Ronald Koeman was named manager, but he was jettisoned two years later. Farhad Moshiri, the club’s majority shareholder, had considered Unai Emery and Monchi of Sevilla for those respective roles.
Walsh’s spell was littered with expensive mistakes. But his successor, Marcel Brands, has done little to improve things since he was drafted in from PSV Eindhoven three years ago — yet he was rewarded with a new contract earlier this summer. He is certainly in the line of fire.
Everton have spent big and handed out huge contracts to players who have done nothing to improve the club’s position — the biggest largesse was the wage for James Rodriguez last summer, which was more than £12million a year. He rarely gave the impression he was committed.
But another example of how muddled Everton have been in the transfer market is in the story of how Alex Iwobi was signed in August 2019.
This is no reflection on Iwobi. He was on holiday in Dubai, having played at the Africa Cup of Nations, and was preparing to go back to Arsenal. Yet in the final hours of the transfer window, in the desperation to get a right-sided player, Everton paid an initial £28m without meeting him in person.
The deal was done with a combination of calls, FaceTime and medical records being hastily emailed out. It should have been slicker — sentiments that apply to all of their dealings.
PAYING THE PENALTY
Benitez has not benefited from the millions Moshiri has made available to his four previous permanent managers — Koeman, Sam Allardyce, Marco Silva and Carlo Ancelotti. To expect him to make a considerable difference to Everton’s fortunes
