With around 15 minutes left on the clock at Goodison Park, Rafa Benitez readied his impact substitute. The plan was greeted with loud booing. Salomon Rondon is becoming accustomed to his roles as a punchbag for supporters’ frustration and as the easily identifiable ambassador for their feelings about the manager.
Benitez and Rondon go back a long way, allies at Newcastle United, at Dalian Yifang in the Chinese Super League. At Everton the worldly Venezuelan centre-forward was earmarked as the summer signing to bring guile and muscle to the forward line by the newly appointed Benitez. Rondon has never been a prolific goalscorer but he is an appreciated partner for other attacking players to feed off. He is industrious and always studiously responsive to the Benitez game plan.
His burden at Everton is to have scored just one league goal in 12 matches in a season when the first choice centre-forward, Dominic Calvert-Lewin has been mostly missing with injury.
Before the groans for Rondon, bought on just after Everton pulled back a goal in Sunday’s 3-2 home defeat to Brighton, Calvert-Lewin had already ballooned a first-half penalty on to the crossbar, one of a series of mishaps that peppered Everton’s first fixture of 2022 and leaves them too close for comfort to the relegation zone.
Calvert-Lewin could at least cite some rustiness. He was making his first appearance since recovering from the toe fracture injury that had kept him out for four months. Everton could have cited collective rustiness, too, given they had not played for 16 days because of various Covid-associated postponements, although Benitez said he was not seeking excuses for a performance against Brighton that bordered on the chaotic at times.
Besides, two weeks confined to the practice pitch without the interruption of matches and travel ought to be a blessing for a coach as Benitez. His first false step in terms of planning for the visit of an intrepid Brighton team was to report in his notes in the match day programme that “we have used the time to prepare as intensively as possible for the challenges Brighton present”.
His next wrong move was to have decided, during that time, that he needed a back three with Seamus Coleman, a career right-back, at left wing-back. Brighton established early command of midfield and had the lead after three minutes.
Last summer Everton hired Benitez, despite hostility among fans because of the manager’s long, storied past with rivals Liverpool, because of his tried-and-tested tactical acumen and a strong record applying it to the Premier League. Benitez accepted certain budgetary constraints, but the initial impressions were positive. They dropped just two points from their opening four matches of the campaign.
But the wheels have come off since. Everton are on a run of eight defeats from their last 11 league matches. The cushion between them and the bottom three is eight points, but Burnley, in 18th, have played a match fewer and Benitez, manager of Newcastle for more than three years, knows full well that the Magpies, 19th, intend to recruit widely this month, backed by their new Saudi investors.
Everton have secured one winter signing already, Ukraine left-back Vitaliy Mykolenko, who should spare the veteran Coleman from being misused on the flank where he is less effective, and puts further scrutiny on the strained relationship between Benitez and France international left-back Lucas Digne. The manager and player clashed last month, and Digne, left out of the match day squad for the previous three fixtures, sat out the 90 minutes against Brighton on the bench.
Addressing the slump in form, and noisy disapproval from home fans, Benitez still confidently forecasts an sharp rise in the second half of the campaign.
He has a back-catalogue to support that forecast. In his long distinguished career, the careful use of squad rotation has yielded some effective post-new year runs, most famously when he guided Valencia to a historic Spanish Liga title in 2002. After 18 fixtures of the 38-match campaign they were seventh in the table. They ended up winning the title by seven points.
At Liverpool, the later campaigns of his six in charge showed improvements after the turn of the year, as did his two full Premier League seasons at Newcastle. But he knows full well that no manager, however confident in his bank of experience and rigorous planning, is immune to abrupt midseason removal.
Inter Milan sacked Benitez just before Christmas in 2010, less than six months into his tenure there. And Tuesday marks the sixth anniversary of being fired by Real Madrid after just 18 league games in charge.
The specs
Engine: 1.4-litre 4-cylinder turbo
Power: 180hp at 5,500rpm
Torque: 250Nm at 3,00rpm
Transmission: 5-speed sequential auto
Price: From Dh139,995
On sale: now
Other ways to buy used products in the UAE
UAE insurance firm Al Wathba National Insurance Company (AWNIC) last year launched an e-commerce website with a facility enabling users to buy car wrecks.
Bidders and potential buyers register on the online salvage car auction portal to view vehicles, review condition reports, or arrange physical surveys, and then start bidding for motors they plan to restore or harvest for parts.
Physical salvage car auctions are a common method for insurers around the world to move on heavily damaged vehicles, but AWNIC is one of the few UAE insurers to offer such services online.
For cars and less sizeable items such as bicycles and furniture, Dubizzle is arguably the best-known marketplace for pre-loved.
Founded in 2005, in recent years it has been joined by a plethora of Facebook community pages for shifting used goods, including Abu Dhabi Marketplace, Flea Market UAE and Arabian Ranches Souq Market while sites such as The Luxury Closet and Riot deal largely in second-hand fashion.
At the high-end of the pre-used spectrum, resellers such as Timepiece360.ae, WatchBox Middle East and Watches Market Dubai deal in authenticated second-hand luxury timepieces from brands such as Rolex, Hublot and Tag Heuer, with a warranty.
Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
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Know your Camel lingo
The bairaq is a competition for the best herd of 50 camels, named for the banner its winner takes home
Namoos - a word of congratulations reserved for falconry competitions, camel races and camel pageants. It best translates as 'the pride of victory' - and for competitors, it is priceless
Asayel camels - sleek, short-haired hound-like racers
Majahim - chocolate-brown camels that can grow to weigh two tonnes. They were only valued for milk until camel pageantry took off in the 1990s
Millions Street - the thoroughfare where camels are led and where white 4x4s throng throughout the festival
The specs
Engine: 6.2-litre V8
Transmission: seven-speed auto
Power: 420 bhp
Torque: 624Nm
Price: from Dh293,200
On sale: now
MORE ON THE US DEMOCRATIC PRIMARIES
How green is the expo nursery?
Some 400,000 shrubs and 13,000 trees in the on-site nursery
An additional 450,000 shrubs and 4,000 trees to be delivered in the months leading up to the expo
Ghaf, date palm, acacia arabica, acacia tortilis, vitex or sage, techoma and the salvadora are just some heat tolerant native plants in the nursery
Approximately 340 species of shrubs and trees selected for diverse landscape
The nursery team works exclusively with organic fertilisers and pesticides
All shrubs and trees supplied by Dubai Municipality
Most sourced from farms, nurseries across the country
Plants and trees are re-potted when they arrive at nursery to give them room to grow
Some mature trees are in open areas or planted within the expo site
Green waste is recycled as compost
Treated sewage effluent supplied by Dubai Municipality is used to meet the majority of the nursery’s irrigation needs
Construction workforce peaked at 40,000 workers
About 65,000 people have signed up to volunteer
Main themes of expo is ‘Connecting Minds, Creating the Future’ and three subthemes of opportunity, mobility and sustainability.
Expo 2020 Dubai to open in October 2020 and run for six months
ENGLAND SQUAD
Team: 15 Mike Brown, 14 Anthony Watson, 13 Ben Te'o, 12 Owen Farrell, 11 Jonny May, 10 George Ford, 9 Ben Youngs, 1 Mako Vunipola, 2 Dylan Hartley, 3 Dan Cole, 4 Joe Launchbury, 5 Maro Itoje, 6 Courtney Lawes, 7 Chris Robshaw, 8 Sam Simmonds
Replacements 16 Jamie George, 17 Alec Hepburn, 18 Harry Williams, 19 George Kruis, 20 Sam Underhill, 21 Danny Care, 22 Jonathan Joseph, 23 Jack Nowell
The Kingfisher Secret
Anonymous, Penguin Books
ENGLAND TEAM
Alastair Cook, Mark Stoneman, James Vince, Joe Root (captain), Dawid Malan, Jonny Bairstow, Moeen Ali, Chris Woakes, Craig Overton, Stuart Broad, James Anderson
Business Insights
- Canada and Mexico are significant energy suppliers to the US, providing the majority of oil and natural gas imports
- The introduction of tariffs could hinder the US's clean energy initiatives by raising input costs for materials like nickel
- US domestic suppliers might benefit from higher prices, but overall oil consumption is expected to decrease due to elevated costs
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