Rumours show United is a club mired in confusion
BOSS’S FUTURE SHOULD HAVE BEEN RESOLVED
IF Newcastle United had resolved Rafa Benitez’s long-term future earlier this year, as they really should have done, then the rumours over potential successors for the Spaniard would not be arising.
Yes, the Magpies have started the season with an eight-game winless run and so the pressure would have been on Benitez to oversee an upturn in results regardless of whether he had signed a new deal.
Yet had the club shown the ambition the Spaniard wanted during the summer window, it is reasonable to suggest Newcastle would probably have been in a loftier position than they find themselves in right now - secondbottom of the table and sitting on only two points.
All of that is supposition - yet there is no doubt the cloud of uncertainty which hangs over just about every aspect of the club is affecting the Magpies both on and off the pitch at the moment. Newcastle have a manager who is well into the final year of his deal but who has postponed talks until after the January transfer window, so unsure is Benitez the Magpies will ever show any inclination to match his ambitions for the club.
The owner’s running of the club remains bafflingly inconsistent. As of Tuesday, the Magpies will have been officially for sale for a year, yet Mike Ashley is no closer to offloading United.
In fact, after a self-imposed 16-month absence, he is now back watching matches and is even taking his manager and players out for meals - and his recently-rediscovered interest in the club has understandably left fans suspicious of his motives.
Then that brings us on to the lack of clarity over which division Newcastle will be in next season.
At the moment, it appears little better than a coin-flip chance the Magpies will be a top-flight side again in 2018/19, so alarming has their start to the campaign been. Uncertainty merely breeds further uncertainty - and the suggestions Newcastle are making contingency plans in case the Magpies’ fortunes fail to improve on the field will only intensify until United start winning games.
A weekend report claimed Newcastle were “considering” Celtic’s back-to-back treble-winning manager Brendan Rodgers as “one name” who could succeed Benitez if the Spaniard cannot turn United’s fortunes around.
It is claimed the Magpies’ next three games - against Brighton at Hove Albion at St James’ Park, Southampton away and then Watford at home - will be “pivotal” when it comes to Benitez’s shortterm future.
Sources at the club are yet to comment on these so-far unconfirmed reports.
However, former Swansea City and Liverpool manager Rodgers is someone whom the hierarchy looked at long before Benitez was appointed in March 2016.
It is understood agents have been offering managers Newcastle’s way in recent months, too, given Benitez’s refusal to sign a new deal.
The United hierarchy have, until now, privately made sure to insist to those agents they “already have a manager” but whether that position could change remains to be seen.
At the latest Fans Forum, the Magpies board stressed they have been “very clear” they want the manager to stay long term and confirmed they had offered him “different proposals in terms of length of contract extension and other key elements.”
What is more, they stated the club will look to “have further conversations” with the Spaniard in an attempt to convince him to sign a new deal.
Ashley, too, recognises that Benitez is key if the billionaire is ever to sell the club.
Having a world-class manager in situ increases both the attractiveness of United to would-be buyers and the valuation of the Magpies.
In spite of all that, Benitez has put pressure on himself in recent weeks by stating he expects Newcastle to climb the table between now and December, given their fixture list now eases somewhat.
If the Magpies were to reach the next international break in November without having secured a win, even some fans may start to question whether the Spaniard can save them.
Even if the Spaniard does ensure Newcastle start winning games and pull clear of the drop zone - as this writer firmly expects him to do - the uncertainty at the club will persist, only it will manifest itself in an alternative manner.
Not only will further potential takeover reports arise but, by the turn of the year, rumours over Benitez’s potential successor come next summer will start to surface while the Spaniard himself will also at some stage need to plan his next career move if he does indeed decide he will not renew his United deal.
The longer a new contract remains unsigned, the greater the confusion.
All of this conspires to ensure United remain a club in a permanent state of flux.
Doubts persist over the manager’s future, the ownership of the club, and even over which division the Magpies will be in next term not to mention a whole host of other issues which remain undetermined, for example the HMRC investigation or what is happening with coach Peter Beardsley.
This uncertainty merely breeds further uncertainty - and, until the Newcastle hierarchy layout a longterm vision for the direction in which the club is heading, the atmosphere on Tyneside will only become ever-more volatile.