Nice and easy does it for the Magpies

NEWCASTLE United and pre-season haven’t always mixed well.

Trips to the USA in 2011 and 2015 resulted in some big issues under Alan Pardew and Steve McClaren, while Sir Bobby Robson’s Magpies were dumped out of the Champions League at the qualifier stage in 2003 after a long-haul Far East tour.

Bad pitches, injuries, too much flying, bad organisation and internal player spats – if it could go wrong for United on tour it invariably did.

But times have changed for the better under Rafa Benitez.

On all the trips mentioned above, one of the main issues for managers was time on the training pitch.

On a dry college training pitch in Orlando in 2011, Pardew’s face said it all, as his shattered troops got to grips with a nightmare trip.

McClaren also complained about the lack of preparation time with his new squad as they trekked from Milwaukee to Portland via Sacramento before heading home jaded and going until mid-October without winning a Premier League game.

Those are scenes Newcastle will avoid this summer, but there are others who have a tough and hectic few weeks ahead of them.

Jurgen Klopp tried his best to laugh things off ahead of Liverpool’s gruelling summer fixture list this year, but the truth is pre-season can scupper your chances of success before the real stuff actually starts if you aren’t careful.

Of course, there is much to take from long-haul tours in a financial sense, but while the Reds, Chelsea, Manchester United, Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur are jet-setting this summer, Benitez will quietly be enjoying a low-key schedule.

Adversity in pre-season can, of course, galvanise teams, as it did for Newcastle in 2011 in the end, but it’s a risk hardly worth taking.

Ireland feels like a great fit for United at the moment.

The short hop over to Carton House for the third year running feels familiar to the majority of Benitez’s squad.

By the time Newcastle’s fivegame summer fixture list is done and dusted, this squad will be fired with enthusiasm.

They’ll certainly need it against the likes of Spurs, Chelsea, Man City and Arsenal.

But they are in with a fighting chance of a solid start if a walk around their summer boot camp is anything to go by. LEE RYDER