Evertonians used to sing that “Bobby Latchford walks on water” but Rafa Benitez seemed to adapt the old moral question of “What would Jesus do?” with “What would Peter Reid do?” when trying to explain his Lucas Digne conundrum.
While both Latchford and later Reid were revered by the Goodison Park faithful, even the biggest of Blue bloods wouldn’t seriously claim either could stride across the Mersey from the Wirral peninsula where Benitez makes his home to the site of the club’s new stadium being built at Bramley-Moore Dock.
However, Reid it seems was chosen by the Spaniard as the kind of passionate club legend to name check over his issue surrounding the left-back.
It’s not in anyone’s interest to publicly declare that Benitez and Digne’s working relationship has broken down to the point that it is now irretrievable and the Everton manager himself eluded that they each might have to be professional if the player remains at the club beyond the end of this month, but the France international’s time on Merseyside appears to be drawing to a close.
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It takes two to tango of course and in any such working relationship, there are both sides of the coin.
As manager, Benitez is the man who is being scrutinised and has to field questions on the matter but that also enables him to put his side of events across with no opportunity of a riposte from the player.
Less than 11 months have elapsed since Digne penned a new long-term contract at Everton – committing himself to the summer of 2025 – and declared: “When you sign for Everton, it is like an amazing wedding.”
Now the honeymoon is well and truly over and it looks like a divorce is on the way.
How much of this could be down to a change in the dugout though?
Digne, a player who is known to pay close attention to his personal statistics, is understood to be unhappy with Benitez’s tactics because he feels it stifles his abilities.
That might be the case but in truth his dip in form stretches further back than the Spaniard’s appointment.
Indeed, the 28-year-old, who hasn’t scored in the Premier League since the 4-0 win over Manchester United towards the end of his first season in April 2019, has provided just one assist in his last 31 matches in the competition for Everton, a sequence stretching back to before he signed his lucrative new deal with 18 of those games coming under Carlo Ancelotti’s watch.
A stickler for detail, Benitez is well-known within the game for his tough love approach with his players and depending on the sensitivities of the individual than can sometimes prove abrasive.
Such methods might seem even more constricting when you’re been used to the lighter touch of his Italian predecessor.
Whichever ‘side’ you’re going to take in this matter though – Benitez still has a long way to go to win over large sections of Everton support base given both his former Liverpool connections and more pertinently right now, a wretched record of one win in 12 matches whereas Digne was warmly applauded by the home crowd when warming up as a substitute against Brighton & Hove Albion – the Blues can do without any individual who doesn’t want to be there.
Having agreed his contract extension last year, Digne remarked: “The fans made me feel at home from the beginning, they showed me big love” but now they’re being told – from Benitez’s lips at least – that the player was “very clear” that he wants to leave Everton.
In days gone by, even a formal transfer request did not always spell the end of an individual’s time at Goodison Park – legends such as the aforementioned Latchford, Kevin Ratcliffe, Neville Southall and Kevin Sheedy all asked to go at various points but ended up staying for considerably longer – but you certainly wouldn’t be putting your mortgage or perhaps even a tenner on Digne running out in a royal blue jersey come February (unless it’s Chelsea’s perhaps?)
That in itself throws up another dilemma.
In already signing a new left-back in the shape of Dynamo Kyiv’s Vitaliy Mykolenko and letting it be known that Digne is supposedly unsettled, it’s to be hoped that Everton have not severely compromised the selling price they could get for him this month.
This time last year the Blues might have expected to get at least £30million for one of their most-valuable assets who was reputed to be interesting Manchester City.
Fortunes can wax and wane dramatically though in football and just as Digne’s fellow Everton defender Mason Holgate was supposed to be on the receiving end of admiring glances from Pep Guardiola back then, now he’s being linked to Burnley.
There will of course be suitors for a player whose CV contains previous spells at Paris Saint-Germain, Roma and Barcelona but having enjoyed such rarefied company before, the likes of Newcastle United and Aston Villa might not sate a refined palate when the potential of a move to the reigning European champions at Stamford Bridge remains a tantalising prospect.
