It’s not a Spanish Benitez has faith
RAFA Benitez says he’s getting players he needs rather than necessarily the ones he wanted – and that recruitment contingency plan has led him back to Spain.
Three of United’s six signings this summer have been Benitez’s compatriots – even if they have all moved abroad after starting their careers in Spain.
And it is no coincidence that as he’s been forced to take more gambles in the market, he’s attempted to mitigate the risk by returning to the contacts, players and the mentality that he knows best.
Benitez is fully aware that Javier Manquillo comes to Newcastle after so-so loan spells with Sunderland and Liverpool. He knows that Joselu was unable to get in the Stoke squad and Mikel Merino had a stop-start season in the Bundesliga.
But he feels that he knows how to motivate players who came through the same Spanish system that he spent his early managerial career – and much of his embryonic professional life – working in. He feels that he knows how they think – and he’ll be able to give them the right message to shock them back into some kind of form if their levels drop.
Benitez’s initial thoughts have always been to sign English players who know the league, but they have arrived with a sizeable premium this summer. The Tammy Abraham transfer, for example, was too expensive despite his lack of first team experience. Andre Gray and Harry Maguire were priced out of Newcastle’s horizons early in the market.
So that left Newcastle looking to either the next tier of English players or overseas gambles. Benitez feels it’s better to go with what you know than take a risk on a player from another European league whose personality may be more difficult to unpick during what is a long season.
While it might have been easy to bill this as a Spanish revolution – succeeding the French revolution that didn’t get Newcastle far in the end – the truth is that it’s more the case of the manager managing the resources he has. It’s an interesting subplot into how Benitez has recalibrated his own expectations this season – and why it still feels unlikely that the manager will walk away.