There is a void that still needs to be filled at Toon
IS THERE ANYONE WHO CAN BRIDGE THE GAP BETWEEN ASHLEY AND BENITEZ?
THE transfer window which has just closed underlined the massive differences that exist between Rafa Benitez and Mike Ashley.
Rafa believes he was promised one thing but given another. Ashley defends his position by insisting the rules were always clearly defined.
In between them is Lee Charnley, who has proved in a disastrous summer that he is far from a football man steeped in the game who knows how it works on the shop floor.
There is a huge void between owner and manager and it has to be filled by someone who can talk manager-speak, can negotiate with other clubs with knowledge, and can still go away and get a clear set of rules written in stone from the owner.
What is needed is not a businessman as such but someone who knows football from the inside.
To a certain extent Graham Carr, a former player and manager, filled that void – or tried to – but since his departure there has been no one of stature to act as a go-between.
Ashley knows business but he doesn’t know football. He admitted as much in his Sky interview.
A solution has to be found, otherwise come January we’ll face the same as we have faced in the last two windows – mistrust and a very angry manager.
United have been left well short; Rafa hasn’t got the tools he believes he needs to do the job. So we now know this us a relegation scrap we’re in.
Crazy as it may sound, we also know that United’s next game at Swansea next weekend is going to be a relegation six-pointer this early in a new season.
Because United won’t stay up by beating teams in the top half of the table but by beating those around them.
They have to overcome the likes of Huddersfield, West Ham and Swansea and they have already failed against the Terriers.
If United don’t avoid defeat in south Wales then they will pay the price when the tough matches come around.
I feel that the 3-0 victory over the Hammers – welcome as it was – is very misleading. It came about not because Newcastle were great but because West Ham were so poor.
Rafa is no fool. Privately he knows that, which is why he wanted further action on the transfer front last week. But does Ashley know it or is he sitting smugly, thinking his club has enough to stay up no danger? United’s manager has to fashion points from a team with no left-back and no real strikers of guaranteed ability. Who is going to score the goals? He would sell Dwight Gayle and Aleksandar Mitrovic if he had replacements and Joselu is a £5m buy. That strips down the most important position in a team to the bare bones. No, it has not been a good window. Benitez, Charnley, and Ashley are hardly the Three Musketeers. Something has to be done to rectify that. Supermac PARIS St Germain are “very confident” they will be able to comply with UEFA’s Financial Fair Play rules after the governing body opened an investigation into the club.
UEFA will take a close look at the big-spending Ligue 1 side over possible breaches of FFP in the wake of their signings of Neymar and Kylian Mbappe.
But PSG say they are “surprised” by UEFA’s decision and have “always operated with total transparency”.
PSG smashed the world transfer record when they paid the £198million release clause in Brazilian superstar Neymar’s Barcelona contract.
They followed it up by recruiting another of the world’s most highly sought-after players, Mbappe, on a season-long loan deal from French champions Monaco on Thursday.
That deal comes with what was described as an option - but is thought to be an obligation - to then purchase the player next summer for a fee of around £166million, which would currently be the second-highest fee ever paid for a player.
UEFA’s FFP regulations were introduced by its former president Michel Platini in a bid to ensure clubs lived within their means and only spent in proportion to their revenue.
PSG said in a statement: “Paris St Germain takes note of the decision of the UEFA Financial Fair Play panel to immediately ensure that the Paris club’s accounts as of 30 June 2018 comply with the fair play criteria for the 2017/2018 season.
“The club is surprised by the news, as it has constantly kept the UEFA Financial Fair Play teams informed of the impact of all player operations carried out this summer when they were not obliged to do so. The club is very confident in its ability to demonstrate that it will fully comply with Financial Fair Play rules for the fiscal year 2017/2018.
“It points out it has always operated with total transparency with the European football authorities, with whom it has developed a relationship of trust over the last six years, demonstrating its utmost respect for the institution.”