If Rafa Benitez gets appointed as manager, which now looks extremely likely, it's an absolute win-win as far as I am concerned. I wanted us to go down once and for all really, but with Rafa at the helm I would be quite optimistic of our chances to make significant progress next season and beyond. Who knows, maybe Ashley has finally learned his lesson and there is light at the end of the tunnel. If we still go down, part of me will be gutted about the lost opportunity to finally see us progress, but no one can deny we will have deserved it for the shambolic running of the club since Ashley took over and in the current situation with the Rafa appointment coming so late in the day. If we go down and don't come up straight away Ashley loses the SD exposure he so desperately craves, and I would expect us to be put up for sale within a few years. Either way, much prefer both scenarios to narrowly avoiding relegation season after season whilst playing dreadful football under such luminaries as Pardew, Carver and McClaren. Chuffed about these latest developments and it will be good to go into games without the indifference or worse I've felt for the last couple of seasons