Benitez was sacked towards the end of January following a harrowing run of form that sent Everton tumbling towards the relegation zone.
The Spaniard was a controversial appointment when it happened last summer due to his Liverpool history, but he was given meagre funds to spend in the summer transfer window.
Benitez claimed that the project was very different and much larger in size when he agreed to accept the offer from Everton.
He stressed that he was promised that there would be money to spend but those plans changed over the course of the summer due to Everton’s inability to sell the players they wanted.
“No. No, no, no, no, no. At the beginning, it was a massive project with the potential to spend some money”, Benitez told The Athletic when asked whether he knew that there was little money to spend.
“It changed when we couldn’t sell players.
“It’s difficult when people are on big contracts and nobody wants to buy them, so we didn’t have that option.
“We signed five players for less than £2 million and we worked with what we had.”
Everton remain in the doldrums under Frank Lampard as well and their spending power is likely to remain curtailed even if they survive due to the Premier League’s Financial Fair Play regulations.
