Rafa Benitez vents out Everton frustration with bare-faced lie in Spanish media
Rafa Benitez has vented his frustrations during an interview with Spanish newspaper AS where he distorted facts about Everton transfer budgets.
The Spaniard says that he couldn’t understand why a club that spent over £500m in transfers in previous windows failed to provide him with enough funds in the market.
The former Toffees boss suggests that he spent only £1.7m, whereas his successors were allowed to spend a sum of £140m on transfers.
When he left the club, Everton were six points off the relegation zone, but after over 12 months they find themselves narrowly sitting ahead of the drop zone.
“What I could not expect is that more than £500 million had been spent in recent years on reinforcements and when I arrived, suddenly, only £1.7million was spent,” said Benitez to AS.
“And when you think you could rebuild the team and recover troops, they don’t let you continue. At that time we were 6 points from relegation with two games less. After us, £140 million were spent and they fell twice and there they are.
“What does not make sense is that they throw you 6 points from relegation and with two games less, having spent only £1.7million, and that this is worse than having spent £140 million to end up going down.”
Rafa loves to present facts. Yes, he can point out that the club have hardly progressed since he left, but the figure quoted by him is wrong. It’s a brazen lie.
The signings of Vitaly Mykolenko and Nathan Patterson were sanctioned by Benitez, and those are not Frank Lampard’s signings.
In the summer, Lampard signed Amadou Onana, Dwight McNeil, Neal Maupay, James Garner, Idrissa Gueye, Conor Coady, Ruben Vinagre, and James Tarkowski.
Of these players, Tarkowski and McNeil joined the club on a free transfer. Vinagre and Coady joined on loans, and Gueye joined for a fee of around £2million [Daily Mail].
Onana was a costly signing. He joined for a fee of around £33m [BBC Sport]. Garner came from Manchester United for a fee of around £15m [Sky Sports], while Maupay also joined for a similar fee [BBC Sport].
So, we can see it’s nowhere near £100m, let alone £140m. Is Rafa counting the wages as well?
Benitez completely forgot that the club sold Richarlison in the summer in a £60m deal [Sky Sports], and basically, it covers up to 90% of Everton’s transfer budget.
Sean Dyche is more unfortunate than him. He is left to work with a team without a key player in Anthony Gordon, who was properly groomed by Benitez.
In an attempt to vent his frustration and launch a scathing attack on the club, Benitez has got his facts wrong. In fact, it’s a bare-faced lie.