Rafa Benítez (now unemployed)

[Amir_9]

20 minutes ago, duo said:

Rafa was the only shinning light during the Ashley years.  Gave us something to be proud of when he was here - he is an absolute class act.  Agreed we have moved on but will always have the utmost respect for the man.

 

He made the most of what he had whilst fully respecting the fans and the club - some people say oh its just a PR spin, well what else is the other option? Pardew telling us what our place is again and again?

 

Sure some transfers were totally off during his tenure but he is a Champions League and La Liga winning manager that stayed with us to take us back up and stabilised us when we came back (with more or less the Championship squad). He never needed to stay beyond our relegation.

 

I can understand people who may have seen him as "negative" (I mean he did make us hard to play against and before him it was a long long time before that was ever the case with an NUFC team) but I will never understand people who outright call his time here as anything but helping us move forwards (for the time). His club choices after leaving us have been terrible for him but I am glad that he managed us as he, for me, at a certain time in football was definitely a top manager. Perhaps not elite, but top.

 

 

Edited April 10, 2023 by Amir_9

[The Butcher]

6 minutes ago, LV said:

There were no other suitable top jobs in Europe around man. What was the football obsessed fella supposed to do? Sit at home?

 

I will never understand this point of view. It was just Ashley PR and it’s been done to death now. If you still don’t get it well…. I don’t know what to say. 

He could've waited a few months like. He's managed to wait over a year since he got sacked at Everton.

 

[KaKa]

7 minutes ago, Dokko said:

 

If you don't know, then you're probably still suffering. It was all just a game to him, he won plenty of the battles but in the end, lost the war. 

 

Incredible that some of you actually bought into Mike Ashley's spin on the whole situation.

 

The same guy that did Keegan and Hughton dirty, and brought the likes of Wise, Llambias, Kinnear, Pardew and Bruce to the club.

 

Mad world man. Mad world. 

[KaKa]

5 minutes ago, Ace said:

I love Rafa but it shows how his stock has fallen that he’s thought of as a poorer option than Angry Ted Lasso. 

 

Goes to show how dumb most owners are.

 

Rafa in the Wolves or West Ham jobs would be scary, but thankfully they're both too stupid to ever bring him in. Let them stay in mid table.

 

 

[Menace]

Well, there's also been plenty of jobs in Spain since, his stock has definitely fallen like.

[Hanshithispantz]

In what way would Rafa at Wolves be ‘scary’? 

[wormy]

1 hour ago, astraguy said:

I'd love him back as a dof, the man can spot a bargain

 

Can we please not go down this rabbit hole again. I love the man but thinking of the inevitable power struggles gives me heart palpitations. 

 

As far as going to Leicester is concerned, it'd be interesting to see how it played out. He'd be joining at practically the same stage of the season as he did us, with Leicester in the same position of 19th, too. But two points adrift and no games in hand compared to our one point adrift and a game in hand.

 

I think it's widely accepted the problem with us was that he didn't have quite enough time to shake the McClaren stank, so I imagine a lot will come down to how quickly the Leicester players respond to his methods. 

[Kid Icarus]

He can go anywhere he wants and I'll always want him to do well providing it's never at our expense like.

 

It's at the point now where he's probably one of the most underrated managers out there.

[duo]

4 minutes ago, Amir_9 said:

 

He made the most of what he had whilst fully respecting the fans and the club - some people say oh its just a PR spin, well what else is the other option? Pardew telling us what our place is again and again?

 

Sure some transfers were totally off during his tenure but he is a Champions League and La Liga winning manager that stayed with us to take us back up and stabilised us when we came back. He never needed to stay beyond our relegation.

 

I can understand people who may have seen him as "negative" (I mean he did make us hard to play against and before him it was a long long time before that was ever the case with an NUFC team) but I will never understand people who outright call his time here as anything but helping us move forwards (for the time). His club choices after leaving us have been terrible for him but I am glad that he managed us as he, for me, at a certain time in football was definitely a top manager. Perhaps not elite, but top.

 

 

 

 

I think people forget he brought Amanda Staveley to the table, and she brought in PIF. Without Rafa there is a good chance Ashley would still be the owner of our club.

[KaKa]

1 minute ago, Menace said:

Well, there's also been plenty of jobs in Spain since, his stock has definitely fallen like.

 

Because he has said he wants to stay in the UK with his family.

[Dokko]

5 minutes ago, KaKa said:

 

Incredible that some of you actually bought into Mike Ashley's spin on the whole situation.

 

The same guy that did Keegan and Hughton dirty, and brought the likes of Wise, Llambias, Kinnear, Pardew and Bruce to the club.

 

Mad world man. Mad world. 

 

Incredible people still think in mono and live in cartoon worlds where only good vs bad exists.

 

 

[Menace]

....

 

Like in China?

 

I have respect for Rafa, and I feel like he did a good job with the resources he had here. Let's not beat around the bush though his last job was poor. That Rondon signing was absolutely honking.

 

 

Edited April 10, 2023 by Menace

[KaKa]

1 minute ago, Hanshithispantz said:

In what way would Rafa at Wolves be ‘scary’? 

 

Because they are able to attract some really decent players and considering some of the success Nuno had with them, I think a manager like Rafa, who is better than Nuno, would have them right up there around the European places.

[KaKa]

1 minute ago, Dokko said:

 

Incredible people still think in mono and live in cartoon worlds where only good vs bad exists.

 

 

 

Respectfully, you're take on the whole thing is just wrong man.

[Gawalls]

59 minutes ago, thomas said:

Pardew's miracle 5th was entertaining in a non-shambolic way imo.

I won’t have a word said against hughtons time either - we were on the floor when we got relegated, he stook around and brought us up with no prior managerial experience just to get sacked by Ashley.

[Rafalove]

1 hour ago, magvicar said:

I think Rafa is a poisoned chalice for any club to be fair.

I wasn't too keen on him at Newcastle as time went on. 

 

I don't like his style of football and I don't think players do.

I also don't think he has any man management skills.

 

But most of all I don't like the way he left the club, regardless of whether people hated Ashley.

His utter bull crap of saying that Chinese club was just the project he wanted was laughable. I mean it had nothing to do with the 12 million contract or so he was offered to do absolutely nothing more than any average Joe could've done.

 

I feel sorry for any club that takes him on, on the wages he would be asking.

I just don't like the bloke.

 

 

 

Rafa admited the money was a reason for him leaving. It’s complete nonsense to suggest the primary reason for him going wasn’t  the lack of a project here. He had a number of offers while he was in the role from China and turned them all down. Money is nice even for someone like Rafa. He is already rich and a project close to his home in Merseyside and a project isn’t he best league would always be more enticing than an offer from China aslong he is treated with a Modicum of respect.

[KaKa]

I was just reading back on Rafa's comments on what happened and apparently Ashley wanted him to commit to an 8 year contract, sound familiar

 

Rafa said he wasn't keen because he wasn't happy with them not letting him make decisions on transfers, and so he wanted to sign a one year extension to see how things went, and Ashley then refused.

[HaydnNUFC]

Looking back I absolutely loved Benitez when he was here. Complete antithesis of the 3 years prior to his appointment and the club we had become in that time. He woke up a lot of the fans and probably the wider footballing media that Newcastle United isn't just a basket case also ran that 'can't compete with Swansea and Southampton' that Ashley and Pardew had tried to tell the world, its a club with fantastic potential and he saw that. Hence the tussles with Ashley. (And it attracted Staveley and her husband to the club to the point of trying to buy it for 4 years) If he had been brought in 2 weeks before he was in March 2016 we'd have stayed up, I'm convinced of that, and the following years may well have been so different. I couldn't believe he came here in the first place when he did, we were 19th and certainly going down and his stock then was much higher then than it is now; his two clubs prior to us were Real Madrid and Napoli.

 

Either way he stuck with us after relegation when he needn't have had to, got us up, then kept us up two seasons running. The first half of the Championship season was a godsend for me personally as I was going through a tough time then and looking forward to matches under him was the main thing that got me through it. In the PL results were at times grim and the football labourious but nowhere near the extent that the media made out. That game v Man City in December 2017 attached a stigma to Benitez and us for absolutely ages due to the grief he got from the media. Regardless, he kept us up both seasons and arguably his defensive coaching Bruce reeled the benefits from in his first season pre COVID. Worn off after lockdown though.

 

However, I do feel his stock has fallen quite a way from where it was when we appointed him 7 years ago. That Everton job was a stinker, can't dress it up any other way from what I've read from the likes of Neil and 1878 on here, one of my good mates from uni who's a ST holder there and it'll affect perception of him but he has no one to blame but himself for it, should never have taken that job and should go abroad in Europe for his next job imo. On top of that, as much as I admire and respect the man, I wouldn't want him back here has manager or any other role in any capacity. I wanted a clean break from the Ashley era and that includes him. The calls for him to return post Watford on here were mental at the time and look even more mental now.

 

Regardless, always will appreciate Benitez for what he did here and what he represented but do think his stock has fallen considerably. He's one that wants complete control at clubs and most don't operate like that anymore. He needs to choose his next job carefully and unfortunately I don't think the right one for him is going to turn up in the PL.

[Dr.Spaceman]

2 hours ago, Gawalls said:

A million percent agree with this but with this statement you’ve basically just laid the bar on the floor.

 

It's all relative though. Who should we have had as manager at the time instead of Rafa then? Nobody would have been able to do what he did under those circumstances (out of the realistic candidates). We panicked after Rafa contract expired and signed Joelinton and ASM (a shit load more spend than Rafa was afforded fwiw), ultimately ASM was the magic wand that patched over the incredible lack of any sort of logical tactical instructions. Without the panic signings we'd have been relegated. Had MA allowed Rafa to spend anywhere near the amount we spent in the summer of 2019 we would have pushed for Europe imo.

 

Genuinely can't believe we're still debating this.

[Wandy]

3 hours ago, magvicar said:

I think Rafa is a poisoned chalice for any club to be fair.

I wasn't too keen on him at Newcastle as time went on. 

 

I don't like his style of football and I don't think players do.

I also don't think he has any man management skills.

 

But most of all I don't like the way he left the club, regardless of whether people hated Ashley.

His utter bull crap of saying that Chinese club was just the project he wanted was laughable. I mean it had nothing to do with the 12 million contract or so he was offered to do absolutely nothing more than any average Joe could've done.

 

I feel sorry for any club that takes him on, on the wages he would be asking.

I just don't like the bloke.

 

Worst post of the year contender right here.

[Sean]

Anyone who has a bad word to say about Rafa should be put on ignore by the rest of the forum.

[GideonShandy]

Remember this?

 

 

[Wandy]

1 hour ago, Ace said:

I love Rafa but it shows how his stock has fallen that he’s thought of as a poorer option than Angry Ted Lasso. 

 

That's more to do with how clueless most football club owners are.

[GideonShandy]

And this.

[WilliamPS]

Leicester need an outsider to change the atmosphere in the dressing room, but they may have left it too late

 

Benitez did a great job at Newcastle- he was comically better than the managers either side of him. It was such a relief to have a professional in charge who sent his team out with a plan and incredibly well drilled after Mclaren and then we saw with Bruce what happens when you take that structure away again.

 

However he’s coming to the end of his career, am not sure how it will work out at Leicester