Everton History

Andros Townsend: ‶Nobody in the club wanted me”

Andros Townsend talks briefly about how nobody at Everton wanted him apart from former Liverpool manager, Rafa Benitez

Andros Townsend has been talking recently on the Ripple Effect podcast briefly about how nobody at Everton wanted him apart from former Liverpool manager, Rafa Benitez.

Townsend was the first new player to come into the senior squad following the controversial appointment of Rafael Benitez as Everton manager in July 2021. He was brought in as a known quantity for the ex-Liverpool and Newcastle United manager, where he had had a good relationship with Townsend before the player moved on in 2015, to spend the 5 years at Crystal Palace.

At 31, Townsend signed a 2-year deal with the Toffees and brought with him many years of experience to a side short on numbers and in need of wide players with Bernard and James Rodriguez on their way out of the club.

In his debut season at Everton in 2021-22, he scored three times in a purple patch of four League games, including a screamer against Burnley, but as Everton's form eroded and eventually collapsed under Benitez, the veteran winger found it difficult to maintain that early-season form.

He scored seven goals whilst laying on four assists, and then unfortunately, he suffered a serious anterior cruciate ligament injury that stopped his Everton career in its tracks.

Speaking to the Ripple Effect podcast with James Lawrence Allcott, Andros Townsend revealed that everyone around Finch Farm was against his signing when he joined Everton in 2021.

“So we kept in contact. And when he got the Everton gig, my agent sort of said, Rafa’s asked about you. And at the time, Everton weren’t Newcastle, Everton weren’t Aston Villa. 

“They were the best of the rest. So I was like, ‘yeah, no chance. Yeah, right. Like pull the other one.'

"But lo and behold, he calls me, he fights for me. Nobody in the club wanted me, but he fought for me, got me.

“I ended up for 4 or 5 months producing some of my best football. Those first few months at Everton. I really was the first name on the team sheet, which was bizarre.”

Another fresh start was promised when Frank Lampard came in to replace the sacked Spaniard at the end of January but Andros's season was ended prematurely in March 2022 on one of his old stomping grounds, Selhurst Park, where he tore his anterior cruciate ligament that put him out for the remainder of his time at Goodison. 

That included the entirety of the following season when he was in recovery and rehabilitation; he would not play for Everton again before his contract expired in June 2023.

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