‘He’s so good’: Benitez could sign his £14m former player for Everton

Follow us on Google Discover

If reports are to be believed, Lucas Digne and Rafa Benitez do not exactly see eye to eye. 

According to The Athletic, and backed up by the Liverpool Echo, Everton’s £18 million France international was left out of Monday’s last-gasp,  Demarai-Gray inspired 2-1 victory over Arsenal after a ‘disagreement’ with his 61-year-old boss. 

Digne, the report adds, is not particularly enamoured with the reactive, pragmatic style of football Benitez has introduced since replacing Carlo Ancelotti in the Goodison Park dugout. 

Compare the relationship between Digne and Benitez and that of Wijnaldum and Benitez, however, and the phrase ‘night and day’ comes to mind. 

“It was great playing for him,” Wijnaldum once said of the former Chelsea, Real Madrid and Liverpool boss. 

The Dutch international spent just a few short months under Benitez at Newcastle United during the 2015/16.

And though the campaign ended in relegation, the veteran Spaniard left a lasting impression on his £14 million midfielder. 

“I learned a lot. A lot,” Wijnaldum would add. “When he came, we collected a lot of points.

“He is really good at making a team with the type of players he has and he is also a man who knows how to get every bit of potential out of you. I was happy that he was there.”

The admiration between Benitez and Wijnaldum is no cul-de-sac either. It really is a two-way street. 

Could Wijnaldum and Benitez be reunited at Everton?

“That is the problem – because he is so good, he can play everywhere and do well,” Benitez beamed in 2016.  

“We were thinking about where to play him the other day, and we said: ‘His best position could be behind the striker’.

“But because he is doing well, he can play on the right, he can play on the left.”

Interestingly, Wijnaldum made his name at Liverpool in none of those positions.

Instead, this Swiss Army knife of a football evolved into a hard-running, box-to-box midfield general, adding the guile and craft he displayed at Newcastle and PSV with the kind of grit and determination Jurgen Klopp demands from his players. 

A summer switch to Paris Saint-Germain has not exactly gone to plan, however, with Wijnaldum left feeling underused and undervalued; an expensive extra in Mauricio Pochettino’s all-star cast.

90Min believe that an immediate return to the Premier League in January with Everton joining Arsenal and former employers Newcastle United in a queue longer than the ones you see outside the Apple store ahead of a new iPhone launch. 

Would Wijnaldum really risk tainting his Liverpool legacy be joining their neighbours from the other side of Stanley Park? Would he, in order words, ‘do a Rafa’? 

Lord knows the under-fire gaffer could do with a friendly face at Goodison Park.