Ally McCoist, Jamie O’Hara, Alan Brazil clash over imminent Everton move for Rafa Benitez
Ally McCoist and Jamie O’Hara have clashed with talkSPORT host Alan Brazil over Rafa Benitez’s reportedly imminent appointment at Everton.
It has been widely reported that Benitez, 61, is set to become the next Blues boss with The Mirror claiming a deal is close to completion.
However, due to the fact Benitez is a Liverpool legend and won the Champions League title at Anfield, Evertonians are not best pleased with the move for the Spaniard.
Ex-Scotland striker Brazil has compared it to Rangers legend McCoist taking the job at Celtic but O’Hara and McCoist don’t feel the same way.
“It’s like Ally managing Celtic,” said Brazil, as shown in a clip on the talkSPORT Twitter account.
“It’s not. He’s a Scottish legend who’s born and raised… he’s Rangers. He can’t go and be the manager of Celtic,” O’Hara hit back.
Brazil responded by saying: “If Ally takes that job at Parkhead, go and get some new windows for your house – they’d go mental.”
McCoist then interjected to say: “No, I know that but I don’t have a problem with it (Benitez going to Everton) probably because I’m not from the area, I don’t understand just what it would mean to those. I get that totally. But I don’t think you can compare it with Rangers and Celtic.
“Listen, he’s a great manager – there’s no getting away from it. I hear some of the comments but I don’t see it being a major problem, do you?”
O’Hara replied: “No, I really don’t. Look, he’s a professional, he’s been offered a Premier League job at a massive football club in Everton – as if you’re going to turn that down because you were once the manager [of Liverpool]. You can’t.”
Brazil wasn’t having that though and said: “I disagree. I think it’s a big problem. They live for the football in Merseyside. The passion is unbelievable and he’s always going to be a Red.”
They can’t speak for us
At the end of the day, none of those three pundits are Everton fans. None of them live in Merseyside and none of them played for either us or Liverpool.
Brazil supports Celtic so knows what it’s like to be passionate about a big derby while McCoist, who’s managed and played for Rangers and became an Ibrox legend, knows more about the Old Firm than almost anyone.
O’Hara has played in North London derbies and Black Country derbies so all three of them know about what it’s like to have connection to massive, fierce rivalries.
But how would O’Hara, for example, feel is Arsene Wenger rocked up at Spurs? Or if Roy Hodgson became the next Wolves manager?
How would McCoist feel if Steven Gerrard left Rangers and in a few years’ time went back to Scotland to manage Celtic?
That’s what we’re talking about here.
We disagree with Brazil, it’s not like McCoist managing Celtic because Benitez is a Spaniard who was at Liverpool for six years. It’s not like he’s a born and bred Kopite.
We think there’s a middle ground between this argument.
Benitez is a good enough manager to override the idea of him previously managing Liverpool, in our opinion.
We don’t care about the off-the-cuff “small club” remark he made all those years ago and has since admitted was wrong. We care about having the right man for the job.
Benitez can be that right man – but it’s not as though there are not other options out there for the board to seriously consider.
While we’re in the middle of this argument, we do appreciate why so many fellow Evertonians have concerns about Rafa.
And therefore, we feel that even though he’d be a good appointment, the board should consider how strongly a lot of fans feel about the ex-Liverpool boss.
In other Everton news, abusive anti-Benitez banners have been hung at Goodison.
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