Adrian Durham blasts Rafa Benitez over Anthony Gordon in ’embarrassing’ Everton loss v Watford
Adrian Durham ranks the 5-2 defeat Everton suffered against Watford as among the three most “embarrassing” results of the week.
The Blues were 2-1 ahead at Goodison Park with 15 minutes remaining of Saturday’s Premier League encounter, but four goals in 13 minutes saw the Hornets surge clear on Merseyside.
Ex-Everton forward Joshua King was the hero for the away side as he scored a hat-trick on his return to Goodison after being continually snubbed by Carlo Ancelotti last season.
It was a dismal defeat for the Blues in a weekend of remarkable results in the Premier League, but talkSPORT host Durham suggests it was not even in the worst two.
“Spurs not even bottom three of embarrassing results this week,” Durham wrote via his personal Twitter profile. “Everton, Norwich [City], Manchester United.”
Durham also criticised the substitutions made by Rafa Benitez. He said on talkSPORT‘s ‘Drive’ show [25/10/21]: “I think there was a key moment on the weekend.
“It came when the lad [Anthony] Gordon was playing really well, the fans love him and he was doing some good things and Rafa took him off.
“Gordon was not the right man to take off. I don’t think the fans appreciated that Gordon went off. And in the end, what happened? They get battered 5-2 at home. What was his thinking process behind some of these substitutions? When I think about [Alex] Iwobi coming on for Demarai Gray…”
Big Benitez failure?
The Spaniard had some tough decisions to make on Saturday, but it looks like he got the majority of them wrong.
Of course, hindsight is a wonderful thing, but the decision to take Gordon off, and later put Iwobi on, was rather baffling.
The former has shown himself to be a livewire and is someone that supporters can fully get behind, which is particularly important at home.
Gray, meanwhile, has been a real talisman for the Blues since his summer arrival, and his substitution looked strange, though that may have been due to a knock he suffered.
But bringing Iwobi on was hardly likely to be the answer, and the pressure on him at Goodison continues to ramp up.
In other Everton news, the Blues have made contact over this striker that Pep Guardiola called ‘Incredible’, and a January transfer is on the cards.
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