Journalist Jamie Weir believes Everton would not be relegated if Rafael Benitez was still in charge of the club.
The Toffees’ situation in the Premier League certainly looks perilous. They sit just three points above the bottom three with 10 games remaining, albeit with at least two games in hand on most of the teams around them.
Under new manager Frank Lampard, they have lost five of their last six games in the top flight, with their only victory during that spell coming courtesy of a stoppage-time Alex Iwobi winner against Newcastle United.
Do you agree with Weir?
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Lampard, of course, replaced Benitez in the hotseat, and Weir believes Everton would not go down with the Spaniard at the helm. He took to Twitter to say: “Evertonians won’t admit to this… but Rafa would have kept them up.”
TIF Thoughts on Weir’s comments…
This is a comment that carries little risk. After all, we will never know how the rest of the season would have played out under the former Liverpool boss.
But there is little to suggest the Merseyside outfit’s fortunes would have changed if a managerial change had not been carried out. While Everton’s form has been far from stellar under Lampard, two wins in eight league outings are better than the one in 13 they managed at the end of Benitez’s reign.
At the time of Benitez’s dismissal, the Goodison Park club were seven points clear of the drop, still with two games in hand to fall back on. Granted, it was a slightly better situation, but a continuation of such form would only have spelt trouble.
Whether Lampard’s appointment was the correct decision remains to be seen, and there is every chance they will still drop down to the second tier at the end of this campaign. However, things hardly looked good with Benitez around, and it therefore made sense for the club’s hierarchy to mix things up.