In the aftermath of Everton’s Merseyside derby humbling, owner Farhad Moshiri went on TalkSport to explain why he was keeping faith in Rafael Benitez turning this ship around.
Not only was that a bold strategy when Everton are in such a mess on the pitch, but it’s also bizarre behaviour for a Premier League owner. The best are seen but not heard, delegating responsibility to effective operators.
By Sunday night, that public missive looked even more silly when it emerged that Everton had sacked Marcel Brands as the club’s director of football.
Brands can have no complaints because his transfer record at Goodison is pretty wretched, but then it was pretty wretched when he was given a new contract in April this year, presumably with Moshiri’s say so. It doesn’t exactly scream of a club engaging in much joined-up thinking.
And that’s the problem with Everton, a club seemingly constantly looking for an escape route out of the knots in which they tie themselves up. Brands’ replacement will be the third director of football appointed during Moshiri’s tenure.
They have burned through an unhelpfully high number of managers, too, and wasted obscene money to barely improve the first team – at least in comparison to their peers – or league position. At what point does this long-term growth strategy actually come together?
Moshiri deserves little of the blame for Everton’s rut – he supplied the money and must be as baffled as any supporter about how it has been squandered.
But at a time when fans are infuriated about the gross wastage on transfer fees and unconvinced that Benitez is the right fit, or the right identity, for his position, it stings a little to hear the owner so publicly discussing the club’s future and giving no indication that he was about to sack the most important person at the club after him.
If they concede early against Arsenal on Monday night, things could get ugly in the stands.
This is an extract of The Score, Daniel Storey’s weekly verdict on all 20 Premier League teams’ performances. Sign up to receive the newsletter on Monday mornings here
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