Rafa Benitez insisted he and his staff “were doing our best” as he opened up about his controversial stint at Everton.
The former Blues boss said he was eager to succeed at Goodison Park and initially believed he made the right decision when he took over following the departure of Carlo Ancelotti.
He blamed money, injuries and “other problems” for the circumstances of his January exit, claiming the opportunity he believed he had in the transfer market was thwarted by difficulty selling players in the summer. But he also stressed his belief the club maintains the potential “to be great”.
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Benitez opened up on his short time at Everton in an in-depth interview with Alan Shearer, for The Athletic. Revealing his disappointment with the way it ended, he said: “I wasn’t happy with the way it finished at Everton, because in the second part of the season, at all my teams, we’ve always done well as a staff, managing squads, controlling the load of training. So missing this part of the season is even worse.”
Asked whether, with hindsight, taking the Everton job was the wrong decision, said he “wanted to succeed more than anyone”. He added: “You have to make decisions in context. Afterwards, with hindsight, it’s easy to have an opinion, but with the conversations I had with Everton and the ambition they told me they had, it was right. Afterwards, well, we didn’t have the money, we had injuries and other problems, and you can see what was going on. But I still think they have the potential to be good, to be great.”
Benitez said the job was pitched to him as “a massive project with the potential to spend some money”. But according to the 62-year-old: “It changed when we couldn’t sell players. It’s difficult when people are on big contracts and nobody wants to buy them, so we didn’t have that option. We signed five players for less than £2m and we worked with what we had.”
Behind the scenes, Benitez also suffered personal tragedy during the summer months, losing his 87-year-old mum, Rosario Maudes, to Coronavirus. He battled through his harrowing loss and said he was “fully concentrated and focused and always trying to do my best”.
When the season began, it started well for Benitez’s Blues, with two of his signings - Andros Townsend and Demarai Gray - earning plaudits as his side initially impressed. Once that form declined, he was surprised by how the support for him and his team disintegrated so rapidly.
He explained: “I was really pleased with the support at the beginning, but yes, I was surprised [by the hostility] because we were giving everything. We were working so hard, a lot of hours — I’ve done that at all my clubs — we were honest and my staff were incredibly dedicated. I was surprised also that, when I left, the club got rid of some of them.
“But I cannot control the emotions of other people. The only thing I can do is give the message that we were doing our best, we were unlucky with injuries, we didn’t have much support in the transfer window in terms of money — you can see the numbers — and that all the teams around us were all spending more money. It was very difficult to improve without that help.”
