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Rafael Benitez

Jesse Pinkman

by Jesse Pinkman
in Football

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Robster

Robster

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Posted

If it is the case that he doesn't like that Rafa is powerful and is loved, which I agree with, it could have been so easy for him to be as equally popular, if not more, than any manager simply by running us properly.

He's a warped fucker.

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Mister_Glass

Mister_Glass

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Posted

Can someone post the Caulkin article from today?

 

Newcastle must wake up to what it means to have Rafael Benitez as manager

 

Mike Ashley risks making the Spaniard his next apology

 

For as long as Rafa Benitez remains their manager, Newcastle United will improve. For as long Mike Ashley remains their owner, they will never be better in any meaningful sense, not if the definition of better includes vibrancy, hunger or straining for glory. This is the contradiction at the heart of a football club, the battleground of a testing, wearing summer, one which has left relationships brittle and ambition rationed.

 

Benitez’s connection to Tyneside has become profound and emotional, the stirring provoked when he agreed to manage a flailing, failing institution now anchoring him to St James’ Park. What pushes him is a desire to reward those supporters who spend their Saturday afternoons repeating his name as if they still cannot comprehend that one of the most garlanded managers of his generation ever consented to be there. They must hope it is enough.

 

If you ignored the heavy-handed spin of Ashley’s recent interview with Sky Sports, there was a moment which veered towards poignancy. Recalling the mistaken decisions which have peppered his decade at the club, he looked into the camera and spoke directly to Alan Shearer, one of his managerial cast-offs, and apologised. He did the same to Kevin Keegan, an “outstanding individual,” who “did his best for the football club”.

 

Keegan was an aspirational, inspirational figure, both as a player and then a manager, instilling a sense of wonder and possibility into Tyneside. Shearer was the world-record signing who came home, rejecting Manchester United to become the club’s leading goalscorer. Keegan was all heart and feel, Shearer the clinical assassin. Few, if any, men have held more influence at the club in the modern era.

 

After the first relegation of the Ashley era, Shearer never received a phone call telling him he was no longer required. Keegan had signings imposed upon him and left, later winning a case for constructive dismissal, in which Newcastle’s evidence was found to be “profoundly unsatisfactory”. The club’s insistence on doing things differently is occasionally interesting but has often felt like dysfunction and in both these cases it is unarguable.

 

That dysfunction has not evaporated. The decision-making process which made the manager or head coach “just another employee and not the most important one,” to quote one of Ashley’s former executives, has not been re-written since Benitez’s arrival. If they understand that the Spaniard is a different calibre of manager to Steve McClaren, John Carver and Alan Pardew, they have not opened their eyes to what that means.

 

Whatever happens between now and the transfer deadline, Benitez will not forget the club’s tardiness at the beginning of the window, when new players did not arrive and he challenged Ashley to “keep his word”. Nor that they refused to sanction the signings he wanted in January. It is not simply a matter of compiling a list and handing it over, but days and weeks of research and negotiations and effort. And, finally, it is about how much they trust him.

 

On a day to day basis, Newcastle is run by Lee Charnley, the managing director. In Justin Barnes, an Ashley lieutenant who has been seeking investment in the club, there has been another layer of bureaucracy for Benitez to contend with, with Keith Bishop, PR to celebrities such as Alicia Douvall, the model, and Russell Grant, the astrologer, as well as to Newcastle, sandwiched in between. In no way can their model be described as normal.

 

It was Ashley, though, who set strategy. His meetings with Benitez at the end of the last two seasons, when requirements were discussed and budgets agreed, were pivotal in persuading the manager to stay. If you have Benitez you must be prepared to be pushed, to listen and be advised. Why would you not want that or to keep him happy? Why not meet him after matches, make the odd call? And if you want to sell, then why not make Newcastle a going concern?

 

Benitez’s expressions of concern have prompted tension, but from his perspective he is working for the fans, doing what he can to improve his team. And it needs improvement. The saddest thing of all would be if his instincts were wrong, that Newcastle do not have the potential that he initially thought. Because the poignant bit about Ashley’s interview was him recognising what he lost but not what he has. And nobody wants to watch him squirming through another apology.

 

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/sport/contradiction-that-is-rationing-newcastles-ambition-tdrtvvr23

 

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KaKa

KaKa

Posted
Posted

Rafa has never quit a job I don't believe, and so he won't do it here.

 

If the window ends in disaster he will start releasing info through the media and exposing what has gone on, which will make MA squirm no end.

 

He will have to sack Rafa in order to get rid of him IMO.

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