Everton has been, for so many reasons, the most complicated, turbulent and unpredictable club in the Premier League over the last seven years.
I would argue passionately with anyone claiming differently.
Frank Lampard is the seventh permanent manager, in as many years in the job, that I have dealt with. I replaced Greg O'Keeffe as Everton reporter slap bang in the middle of Roberto Martinez's reign in January 2015 and leave, today, in the infancy of Lampard's.
In that time, the club has gone through massive change. As I repeatedly tell people from outside of our Goodison bubble and fans of other clubs, it is never dull at Everton. Never.
And sadly, that has quite often not converted into excitement and, certainly not, success.
Everton are in a deeply worrying position on the pitch, but the early feeling you get from Lampard is that the team is in good hands. It's early days and given the world in which we still live, we've not been able to talk beyond the confines of a Zoom call, but he seems like a very decent man who, we all must hope, can get through to these players.
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I would have looked forward to trying to build a rapport and understanding with the new manager although, the extent to which you're able to do that in this job, hinges on several things - namely how open they are to such an idea.
And it also doesn't always mean you get on, either.
Roberto Martinez arrived at Everton in 2013 with a desire to foster good relationships with the local media.
As the ECHO's Everton reporter, it is what you want and it gives you the belief that being the man on the ground can be, as much as possible, like it was for many of those who had done the job before you, when the media-club dynamic was significantly different and the doors were permanently open.
But, as many of you may already know as it's not been a secret, we ended up falling out.
There's certainly an element of regret that we did.
Not that my 'chemistry' interview with Leighton Baines - where the left-back calmly said: “I just don’t feel as though the chemistry is quite there with the team on the pitch at the moment, and it hasn’t been for a while" - was wrong or inaccurately reported or spun, as Martinez was trying to claim at the time, but regret that we both couldn't get past it.
For many local reporters, butting heads with a manager of the club you cover is seen as a rite of passage, and some would wear it as a badge of honour. I guess, at the time, I was the same. We'd fallen out, Martinez wasn't backing down and neither was I, and so it remained frosty (and that's being generous) until he was sacked.
He told me I'd 'let the club down' in publishing the interview with Baines. That's utter nonsense, of course, but he was a manager who was under-pressure and stung by a senior player saying what he did. Now, I can appreciate some of his reasoning for reacting as he did. Only some of it, mind.
Baines, by the way, was just speaking his mind, articulately as ever, and was trying to make sense of a bad situation. I think he may have winced at the headlines and certainly did not go out to cause a storm, but what he said was important.
Martinez and I have not spoken since. We most probably never will. If we do bump into each other or ever exchange a text, I'd like to think we'd both accept we could have done things differently around the time.
I believe I was the last, or at least one of the last, reporters on the patch to say it had reached a point that his time was up (it was after the FA Cup semi-final defeat to Manchester United that I wrote 'back him or sack him'). The place was turning toxic but I have always considered myself someone who strives to look at the bigger picture and who has wanted stability at our club, believing it will reap benefits in the long run.
*Pick the Everton team to face Leeds United:
Initially the ruthless nature of the Farhad Moshiri era was exciting, but in truth the trigger has been pulled all too readily.
And, for a long time, I felt like sacking Martinez would be the wrong move and, looking back, perhaps I should have been brave enough to have said that more, but our falling out made me reconsider.
You're only human, and because he reacted so badly to the interview, I was left to think: 'He's not going to change, is he? And if he is prepared to turn on me, someone who has wanted to support him, then why should I continue to see the worsening situation from his point of view as much?'
But that's what I regret. I should have put those feelings to one side and retained my belief that he needed time and could come through the storm. But Martinez didn't help the situation or himself in this regard.
I'd like to hope, if he reflected on that time, he would have respected our working relationship more and not lashed out as he did. Perhaps he had a differing view to us, about what that relationship should look like. We were never going to be a mouthpiece, if that's what he expected.
He's a good man, an engaging football man, who was generous with his time. Martinez has since said he wished he had been able to explain his longer-term vision for the team, and club, better than he did. I would have been more than happy to have listened, questioned him about it and then reported accordingly, but things soured. His sacking brought me no pleasure, only relief that the club, however they chose to do so, could move on and cut through the tension.
Ronald Koeman came in and wasn't interested in building relationships with the press but what the Dutchman did do (which is always welcome in my job) was answer every question with a straight response. To the point, honest and without any need for decoding.
The ECHO was now interviewing Ronald with the rest of the newspapers and, understandably for all concerned, Ross Barkley's future was a big point of discussion throughout that first season.
Those questions would not always come from us, but others in the room as well, yet I think the regular stream of stories about Ross' form and his contract, painted a picture that we were obsessed with him.
It wasn't long before I realised he'd blocked me on Twitter.
I like Ross and wish he was still an Everton player but it's important he knows there was no agenda, obsession or intent to be tougher on him, because he was the local lad, even if Koeman's willing to talk about him in blunt terms, may have suggested there was.
Koeman's eventual replacement, Sam Allardyce was, initially, more accommodating to the ECHO with his time but he soon became wary of us, that was clear.
Determined to give him a fair crack at the job, despite everyone's reservations, I once asked him something along the lines of, 'do the next three games give you a good opportunity to start winning over the sceptics?'.
It was not a particularly good question, but it was an open goal for Allardyce to say the right thing yet he chose not to, instead telling me it was a 'silly question' - or words to that effect - and urged me to move on.
He had an opportunity to talk to supporters and give them an insight into why they should trust him, but decided not to. I was sat there, in a small side room in the Finch Farm media centre, thinking: 'I can't help you here, mate'.
It was an appointment doomed from the start.
But credit, if you can call it that, where it is due. Because Allardyce's eighth-placed finish (albeit from a base of 13th and not from the depths of non-league obscurity as he likes to spin it) is the joint-second highest finish the club has recorded since 2014.
Go figure.
I make no secret of the fact that I like Marco Silva. I was afforded the opportunity to get to understand the Portuguese better than most, if not, all reporters covering the club during this time.
He wanted a working relationship and wanted to give us his time so he could answer questions and, hopefully, provide answers to what supporters wanted to know.
He valued that opportunity and, in turn, I valued his openness and willingness to do so.
He understood, and liked, the fact that the ECHO wanted to ask him all manner of things connected to the team, small details that wouldn't necessarily make the national press.
We didn't always agree and many of the questions would provoke strong, but always fair, reactions from him. He understood we had to tell it how it was but he wanted to talk.
On camera he struggled to always present his full personality. Away from them, he was more relaxed, open and engaging. His success with Fulham this season is not much of a surprise and I am pleased he is rebuilding his reputation.
Although something had to change after that defeat to Liverpool, in December 2019, his sacking felt like a decision that could have been avoided.
Marcel Brands never, truly, recovered what authority he'd had, after that.
The changing media landscape, greater demands on clubs to service their sponsors with appearances, and a variety of other reasons means I sign off from the job without having got to know more of the players as well as I would have liked.
When Romelu Lukaku talked to the media he, invariably, found a way to wind up Evertonians but he was a really good interview subject - probably the best of my time in the job - because he's intelligent and was not bogged down by any of the media training he may have had. He had opinions and wanted to share them, popular or otherwise.
Steven Naismith was, and has remained in the time we've spoken since he left, one of the most thoughtful footballers I have spoken to. He's a smart man, who thinks deeply about the game, and he has interesting things to say. Gareth Barry, a really good bloke, falls into that category too.
And the most difficult player to have interviewed? After a defeat, no player was in a great mood and it could be tough to get them to open up. Darron Gibson, you could tell, wasn't a fan of doing interviews win, lose or draw and wore it all over his face, but would often have a good point to make. Morgan Schneiderlin was on media duties ahead of the Europa League dead rubber in Limassol, in late 2017, and he did not want to be there. Craig Shakespeare, next to him that evening, was equally as tough to get anything out of.
It was like pulling teeth.
There were never any (at least not that I can recall) clashes or angry exchanges, just plenty of stilted conversations as certain players went through the motions of fulfilling media commitments. They were the worst kind of interviews. You'd much rather have a heated conversation, however uncomfortable it may be at the time.
Uncomfortable like that afternoon Martinez walked into a room adjoining the media centre at the training ground.
'Hi Roberto, are you ok?'
'Hi Phil, no....'
I've explained what happened next.
