Rafa Benítez (now unemployed)

[Taylor Swift]

Why would Benítez give a shit right now? He’s staying because he’ll lose £6m if he resigns. What’s the possible negative of finishing out the season? He earns some money and leaves.

 

All of our problems are because of Ashley and the way he does business.

[UncleBingo]

Lots of calls online for him to to, tonight. :: I still have faith - the man has been backed into a corner by the owner, who will be sat pissing himself tonight. Because guess who wins again? Not Rafa and not the supporters.

 

Perhaps Ashley's endgame here is to force Rafa to resign, with fans turning on him. Rafa would then have to pay Ashley.......  I don't think the owner is bothered about relegation, as he can sell Lascelles and Shelvey to offset the loss in reveue. And he will also have two seasons of TV cash by then. He's no going anywhere.

 

To be honest fella, I think sacking him would be the best for all concerned.

 

After all he's tried to do for this club, Benitez doesn't deserve this.

[UncleBingo]

We were set up to lose today; we were never in it, never showed any ambition and allowed Leicester to find space all over the pitch. Rafa is playing games, we’re going down at the moment, Rafa’s parting gift may be to rid us of Ashley at the cost of going down. I’m fine with that but it’s bloody awful to watch.

 

How Atsu stayed on for 90 minutes I’ll never know, swapping Gayle for Rondon looks utter madness just now. Rafa has to give the match going fans something to hold on to. Today was desperate.

 

We've been set up to lose ever since Ashley bought the club man.

 

 

[Guest covmag]

depressing, ugly, gutted, predictable, hate, despair, mad 

 

Weekends following Ashleys NUFC

[ujpest doza]

Booing one of his subs man, utter mongs.

Other managers substitutions have been booed in the passed so why shouldn't Rafa's?

 

I can remember people going berzerk (me included) early in Keegans reign when he took Steve Watson off as he seemed to be an easy target as a young kid.

 

Atsu was absolutely shite today and should have gone off for Murphy at Half time (in fact Murphy should have started instead of Atsu).

 

Rafa's hands are tied by a lop sided squad devoid of decent forwards and top heavy with centre halves, but does he really have no input into what we buy? Why buy Schar and then not even have him bench most weeks? Why buy Muto and not play him, it's easier to start games than to come on as sub when we're chasing a game and try and make an impact.

 

Today was a day for playing on the floor with pace yet he still picked Joselu over Muto.

 

I love the bloke and don't think we could do any better ever as manager, but he isn't above criticism and some of his decisions are bizarre and do seem political when we really can't afford to be doing things just to prove a point.

 

[marki]

Lots of calls online for him to to, tonight. :: I still have faith - the man has been backed into a corner by the owner, who will be sat pissing himself tonight. Because guess who wins again? Not Rafa and not the supporters.

 

Perhaps Ashley's endgame here is to force Rafa to resign, with fans turning on him. Rafa would then have to pay Ashley.......  I don't think the owner is bothered about relegation, as he can sell Lascelles and Shelvey to offset the loss in reveue. And he will also have two seasons of TV cash by then. He's no going anywhere.

  yeh thats about right ..so predictable now

[ujpest doza]

Booing a pretty straightforward sub like that is retarded, don't care if Keegan got a sub booed

It's frustration at the fact that Ritchie gets hooked after an hour nearly every week when there are far more obvious candidates.

 

I just didn't clap, didn't boo, but really understand why a lot did.

[Paulie Walnuts]

People need to get real.  We genuinely have one of the best managers in the world who gets the area and the fans and the potential.  The potential with even moderate backing is off the scale. Currently, he's working with pennies when everyone else has pounds.  There's only so much you can do with this paper thin substandard squad.  Sure he makes mistakes, but there's only one person to blame and turning on the manager plays into his chubby hands

[Guest Howaythetoon]

Our team is shit, the owner is to blame for that and we are in a bad place right now, but that level of performance and how we play is indefensible and Rafa must take a lot of the blame for that. We don’t get bodies forward, we don’t play with any tempo, we don’t get men in the box, we rarely cross and we treat the ball like it’s a fucking grenade.

 

We allowed a Leicester team who are not great themselves to take the piss, it was so easy for them and a comfortable win in the end. Its awful and as bad as anything served up in the last decade. What ever we do in training during the week it’s not working and I refuse to use excuses like this is a Championship team or that’s what you get when you don’t spend money when we play like this, no, that’s what you get when you sit back and don’t even fucking attack.

 

10 minutes to go and we make 5 or so passes between the defenders and ‘keeper instead of looking forward. We don’t even close down quickly these days. The tactics are rubbish, the style is rubbish and yes we do have a rubbish team, but those tactics and our style of play are making it even more rubbish. Sort it out Rafa.

 

We are going down...

[sempuki]

No doubt bollocks - a centre half is the last position we need:

 

https://www.express.co.uk/sport/football/1024677/Newcastle-news-Rafa-Benitez-identifies-January-transfer-target-extend-Toon-stay

[James]

It’s all Ashley’s fault but I feel like the fight had gone again from top to bottom. He needs to win soon to prove this is not the case otherwise from a purely results perspective we’d need someone to come in and bring back some fight and self belief although to be honest i’d rather we just went down with a record low points.

[sbnufc]

No doubt bollocks - a centre half is the last position we need:

 

https://www.express.co.uk/sport/football/1024677/Newcastle-news-Rafa-Benitez-identifies-January-transfer-target-extend-Toon-stay

 

"Benitez who looks set to stay at the club beyond the end of the season wants to bolster his squad."

 

wat

[Robster]

Amazing journalism, that.

[ToonArmy1892]

Booing a pretty straightforward sub like that is retarded, don't care if Keegan got a sub booed

 

 

[Sean]

Anyone losing faith in Rafa...who would do better?

 

The only problem is our fucking owner.

 

And has been for 10 years now.

 

But shortsighted muppets will be muppets...

[NEEJ]

Are people actually trying to say Rafa should get the boot? If so, fuck right off, man. Utter fucking mongs. Deserve all they get the fucking cretins. What an embarrassment.

[Sean]

Dare I say should have kept the negativity to a minimum if he was going to see out his last year and tried to maybe reconsider some of his decisions in the transfer window?

 

What decisions did Benitez make in the transfer window exactly that he should be reconsidering. Do enlighten me.

 

Murphy has been a terrible signing so far. Muto has not had the impact you want from him given the fact he cost more than our average net spend.

 

Letting Mitro go instead of trying to gel a system around him (I was not a fan of Mitro at all but its clear that he has some impact at this level).

 

Look man, Rafa as impeccable as he has been in coaching poor quality players so far, overall I don't find that he has been remarkably astute in the transfer market for us.

 

This is working on the (wrong) assumption that Rafa knows what we spend on players, and has control. 5m for Muto? Do it. 12m? Too much.

 

Our manager literally has no fucking idea whats going on. Probably puts 100 names forward each summer and has to see what shit lands.

 

Start thinking ffs.

 

 

 

[Sean]

Dare I say should have kept the negativity to a minimum if he was going to see out his last year and tried to maybe reconsider some of his decisions in the transfer window?

 

What decisions did Benitez make in the transfer window exactly that he should be reconsidering. Do enlighten me.

Jacob Murphy, total shite, and not given the chance to prove otherwise anyway, that's his most expensive signing and hes made zero impact in a season and a bit.

 

Spending 10 million Muto and hes barely played a games worth of minutes, has also contributed nothing.

 

Manquillo, I'm no scout but surely there was a younger, more hungry player someone across Europe to spend 5 million pounds on?

 

If reports are to be believed he wanted to spend a combined 40 million on Rondon and Kenedy too, what a fuck up that would have been.

 

Atsu, 6 million quids worth of shite, that's without mentioning the likes of Gamez and Lazaar who were seemingly brought in for the crack and cast off without being given a chance.

 

That's the chance you take with transfers, but overall we've had more misses than hits from him.

 

10 million buys you fuck all nowadays in case you'd been alseep for the bast part of a decade.

[Sean]

When people moan about Rafa's transfers it's like complaining you've not been served a Michelin star meal when you've sent the missus out with 50p and in the shop there's only damaged tins of dog food left on the shelf.

 

This. Ashley plays on the fucking stupidity of our fans, and of course they never fail to deliver. It still shocks me how fucking shortsighted a huge proportion of our fanbase is.

 

Im still of the belief that IQ level is directly linked to people who are fully aware of the circumstances for us being shit turning on Rafa. Would love to see a test on this tbh 

[Guest reefatoon]

“Ashley won’t stop them going ffs”. They will turn up in their droves to boo a Rafa sub.

[Guest chopey]

Why did Rafa stick around after the summer ? I can't believe he couldn't of negotiated himself out of the £6 million millstone, I know we had a terrible set of fixtures the first couple of month but he is just setting himself up to fail !!! At this stage the record books will show Rafa's time at NUFC consisted of two relegations, one promotion and limping out of the every cup we entered under him, Pardew hung his hat on a 5th place finish for years please don't let Rafa do the same with 10th.

[TRon]

Until he gets a striker fit for purpose who can start games, he is always going to have Mitrovic thrown back in his face. We are going into games even against mediocre teams shit scared of losing because they have much better forwards than us. Not that I rate Mitrovic that much but he's better than Joselu.

[Hanshithispantz]

10 million buys you even less when you don’t have a clear budget, which is the most important thing really. This sell to buy shite is completely ridiculous. It’s impossible to spend well when you have no idea how much you’re going to have to spend and when.

[Hanshithispantz]

Not to say he hasn’t made bad buys, he’s made some astonishingly shite buys throughout his career but he’ll usually end up with a good side. We basically need every buy he makes to hit the ground running.

[Zero]

I think the question should be why he decided to spend the money in this way. It is not a question that

1. He being fucked up by the fat cunt

2. He shouldn't be responsible for buying his 27th choice etc.

 

However assuming that what he spent was what he have and he has "the right to choose", then I think it is valid to question why pay 10m for bench warmers.