🔵 What next for Everton after unhappy marriage with Rafa comes to an end? | OneFootball

After six-and-a-half-months, 22 games, 10 defeats and only seven wins Rafael Benítez’s time as Everton manager has come to an end.

A managerial appointment that looked troubled from the beginning vanquishes and leaves the Toffees supporters thinking two things – what was the point in all of that and where do we go from here?

The Everton fanbase cannot be accused of not giving the 61-year-old a chance.

Benítez received a welcoming reception before his first game in charge at Goodison Park against Southampton on August 14 but considering his history with the red half of Merseyside, any honeymoon period was more likely to be a weekend trip to the Cotswolds than a round-the-world trip on a cruise.

Critics can point at football fans for being petty and ‘childish’ for not taking to a former player or manager of the club they despise but Benítez was on record for calling Everton a ‘small club’ during his time at Liverpool so it was always likely that the Spaniard was going to be given short shrift by the blue half of the city.

But even without the Liverpool connection, the initial appointment of Benítez could perhaps be considered a peculiar one.

His last spell in the Premier League saw him consolidate Newcastle United in the top flight: an achievement which had him adored on Tyneside but he last won a trophy in 2014, leading Napoli to the Coppa Italia.

Fans of teams in the Premier League who harbour European aspirations aren’t always inspired by managers who are known for wanting his teams to play cautious, pragmatic football which is a tag Benítez has been branded with in the past.

During his time at Newcastle, the very least you could say about his team is that they were disciplined and hard to break down but that wasn’t evident at Everton. They have conceded 34 goals in 19 games and on Saturday became only the third team this season to concede more than one goal to Norwich.

The picture may look a lot different today if Dominic Calvert-Lewin hadn’t been out injured for the past four months while Yerry Mina has also been a big miss at the back.

But it felt there was an air of inevitability about today’s decision and now the club have another big one to make.

Where do Everton go from here?

On December 6 when director of football Marcel Brands left, the club released a statement, insisting that ‘a strategic review of the football structure will now take place which will inform the best model for the club to proceed with in the long-term’.

A deep dive on how the sporting operations side of things should be run may re-align everything for the better.

Everton’s starting line-up at the weekend consisted of 11 players signed under the stewardship of six different managers.

Owner Farhad Moshiri will now be looking for his seventh different manager and just one glance at the list of those that have been in charge in the past throw up a contrast of different styles and personalities.

Marco Silva arrived as one of the most promising young managers in Europe before he was replaced by Carlo Ancelotti, a man more known for guaranteeing instant success rather than laying down any long-term roots.

And then came the appointments of Benítez and Sam Allardyce which pose a whole new ball game altogether.

Everton have another chance now to get the right man.

A quick glance at those linked with the job show the romantic choice in Derby boss Wayne Rooney, while Brighton and Hove Albion’s Graham Potter points to a longer-term thinking and then there is Paulo Fonseca who seems to have been in the running every time Everton sack a manager.

With the Toffees now only six points above the relegation zone, the margin for error has just dramatically shortened.