'I want to stay because we fought so hard to be here'

RAFA Benitez says it has never crossed his mind to leave Newcastle this summer.

And in an interview that sets out his commitment to Newcastle he says: • His disappointment at the club has not dimmed his desire to turn United into a force; • He is ready to move on from the summer disappointment; • He owes it to the players who signed because of him to stay; • He is a man of his word, who turned down an offer from Real Madrid to stay at Liverpool.

Benitez wants at least three more players including a striker, but he fears the Lucas Perez deal is slipping away from him as the club wait to transfer fees to drop in the final days of the transfer window.

The United boss is clearly frustrated and feels the club have lost momentum and players in a disappointing summer.

But ahead of the Spurs game today, he offered his clearest sign yet that he will stay at Newcastle regardless of what is to come next.

Asked whether he ever thought of Rafael Benitez in training with his players resigning, he said: “No. What I said before was the truth. From the beginning I was working very hard trying to get the targets that we had and we couldn’t do it and then I was asking why?

“So you have to put everything together. I said, ‘We have this problem, this one, this one, this one – what do you want to do? And I said I want to stay’.

“I want to stay because we fought so hard to be here. We have a city behind the team, a city behind you and your team. I said, ‘Listen, it is a pity, so we will try to do our best’, and still you are pushing and trying to change things and do things in a normal way.

“I am not someone who says, ‘You have to do this...’ because it’s me. No, it’s because we have experience, we have been successful and we want to replicate this way to do things.

“If I am here and they pay me the salary that they pay me, it’s because they trust me. It’s because I have won something and we are doing things in a professional way.

“We are not demanding crazy things, we are demanding just to do things in the right way, like we did with Liverpool or with Chelsea or the other clubs where we have been.

“We are doing things in a professional way with a lot of staff working together and after, you have someone who has to make the decisions.

“In this case, I was expecting it could be like this – it wasn’t exactly what I was expecting – and then we have to be sure that in this case Lee, when I tell him, he understands why I am saying ‘I would like to do this in this way’.

“I explain things. It’s not that I don’t explain the reasons why. This way has been successful, so were trying to replicate similar things.

He said he owes it to the players who signed because of him to stay.

Benitez said: “I will tell you something that I didn’t say before. I had two or three targets, two or three players, who wanted to come here because of me – and I don’t want to be egotistical.

“They wanted to come here because of me and I couldn’t let them down. I cannot leave people waiting for me to do something, I cannot let them down.

“I decided to stay in the Champion-