Benitez must stay if Toon are to be a success
Ritchie’s warning over Toon manager’s future
MATT Ritchie has warned Newcastle United that it is “very important” Rafa Benitez stays – because he is the “perfect man” to lead the Magpies to success.
The Magpies all-but secured their Premier League status for another season by surpassing the 40-point barrier with victory over Arsenal last weekend, and now focus has turned to the future.
Benitez clearly hopes to remain at St James’ Park long term, and the players want him to stay too, but the Spaniard stressed on Friday he needs assurances from the club that they match his own ambitions to try and win silverware.
“An awful lot,” Ritchie replied when asked by Sky Sports how much credit Benitez deserves for United’s success this season.
“He’s very calm – win, lose or draw – it’s the same approach the next week in training. The way he sets us up is, I think, the reason we’re always in games. He deserves an awful lot of credit.
“For sure [the players want him to stay]. It’s important he stays because, if the club want to keep pushing on and progressing, then obviously you need a good manager that’s been there and done it. He’s got all of that.
“So it’s very important we keep hold of him, so that going forward we keep building as a football club. He’d be the perfect man to lead that.”
Ritchie left Premier League Bournemouth for Newcastle during the summer of 2016, despite the Magpies hav-
ing just been relegated. But the Scotland international wanted to move to a club he knew had immense potential which could be fulfilled under Benitez’s tutelage.
Survival this season is merely the next step along the road to achieving that potential, following on from promotion last term, and now Ritchie is targeting further progress during the 2018/19 campaign.
“Everyone knows it’s such a big football club, with a great following and it’s a club that has got a great history,” the 28-yearold added.
“Hopefully this era can be an era of success, too. Obviously it’s early days, we need to take it one step at a time. We’ve come back up from the Championship to the Premier League, and now we need to keep building.” At the turn of the year, Newcastle were mired in relegation trouble – but their form in 2018, which has only been bettered by the top four, has been immense. Four successive victories have taken United up to 10th place in the table, just one point and one position behind Monday night’s opponents Everton. And, even though United have achieved their primary objective for the season by securing survival, Ritchie is determined Newcastle make it five wins on the bounce at Goodison Park. “I remember when we had a spell just before Christmas and every pundit, every paper, was saying that we would go down and that we haven’t got enough,” Ritchie continued. “But in the group, we always knew that we were going to keep working hard and give ourselves a good chance.
“The games throughout the season have always been decided by one goal, or very close games – and we’ve never really been rolled over.
“Obviously if you are like that then you’re always in the game, you’re always going to give yourselves a chance to win games, and the first bit of the job is now done.
“We’ve secured safety now, but we’re certainly not done. We want to continue to work hard, win games and pick up points.
“The game on Monday night is a game we hope to take points from, and we’ve prepared really well this week, training’s been very good – and now it’s all about our mentality and desire to climb that table.
“We can go above Everton if we beat them – and we want to do that.”
It’s very important we keep hold of him, so that going forward we keep building as a football club Matt Ritchie