Benitez on the brink

IS RAFA BENITEZ reaching the end at Newcastle?

A ninth, stressful, mediocre, winless, luckless game completed and Benitez spluttered through the inquest nursing a cold and looking ill.

Only Newcastle could appoint a world class manager, create hope and momentum, then squander it and grind him to this miserable point.

“We’re a little bit under pressure because the time is short now,” he said, hinting that something has to give.

Stay or go, he’s already beaten down with his reputation dented and Newcastle adrift at the bottom of the Premier League.

Beaten by a dreadful owner who has failed to nurture his skills and experience, and be ambitious.

Beaten by chronic underinvestment, certainly – where has all the £123m TV cash and transfer profit gone?

Negativity

But also beaten by a season scarred by negativity about his squad’s prospects and a reluctance to shake up a losing team.

Only three top flight teams in history had lost their first five home games until Brighton’s Beram Kayal grabbed a first-half winner.

It is Newcastle’s worst top flight start since 1898. Geordies must pray for a repeat of that season when they won seven in a row and climbed to 13th.

Can this side muster 36 points in the remaining 29 games?

A third relegation of Mike Ashley’s 11-year ownership looms. They were only relegated four times in the previous 117 years.

Does Ashley, who watched his fourth consecutive game, have the appetite for a gamble?

Relegation equals millions wiped off his current £300m sale price, so maybe.