Benitez future up in air as Newcastle hit rock bottom
If Mike Ashley had taken a gamble with a non-transfer policy that risked losing Rafael Benitez, the Newcastle owner arguably now faces an even bigger roll of the dice should he decide to stick with the increasingly beleaguered Spaniard.
Seemingly heretical only weeks ago, there is a growing undercurrent of opinion on Tyneside that, rather than being the solution, the manager may well be a significant part of the problem in an unholy monochrome mess that threatens a third relegation in a decade on Ashley’s turbulent watch.
Even given the myriad mitigating circumstances, Benitez can and does regularly flag up that no manager, not even one with the pedigree of the 58-year-old Champions League winner, can feel secure in his job after one victory in the past 15 games.
With little sign of an extension to a contract, which both parties seem intent to allow to peter out until its conclusion this summer, Ashley is faced with a choice.
He can give his continued backing to a man whose main stated hope of top-flight salvation is that there are three teams worse than Newcastle. Alternatively, he can put Benitez out of his transfer fundstarved misery by shelling out a seven-figure compensation package to initiate a more immediate parting of the ways, install a successor and keep his fingers crossed for the upturn in results that generally accompanies a new broom.
Supporters will soon learn if desperate times lead to desperate measures, and the latter course of action does not seem as fanciful as it did even a month ago when Benitez’s rallying calls for the invigorating effects of a first victory of the season did not ring as hollow as they are starting to now following the club’s worst start to a season since Queen Victoria reigned.
“I don’t think anyone can question the manager,” Jamaal Lascelles, the captain, insisted.
Newcastle sit bottom of the Premier League, but the defender backed his manager in typically forthright manner, adding: “He has done it at the top level and he has won trophies, so he knows what he’s doing.
“I don’t want to talk about the last time we were relegated because we’re way off that. The feeling then was completely different to now.
“Halfway through last season, we were in the bottom three, but we turned it around to finish 10th, so there’s nothing to panic about.”
Many supporters find it difficult to concur with such a steadfast belief that a team who have mustered two points from their opening nine matches – albeit many of those against teams who will finish in the top six – will pull clear of danger once again.
Newcastle put over 41 crosses – 11 more than anyone else in the top flight on Saturday – during a game they controlled for long spells, but such an approach was largely wasted on the diminutive strike duo of Yoshinori Muto and Ayoze Perez before the belated introduction of Joselu.
The damage already inflicted will result in a season-long battle for survival. Benitez admitted: “I didn’t say anything at the beginning. I knew that some people were talking about that [relegation] and they’ve said that in the last few weeks. We’ll just carry on trying to win games and try to find three teams worse than us.”
There was support of sorts from Chris Hughton, a man who knows all about the constraints of working under Ashley following his unjust sacking by the Newcastle owner in 2010 after 18 months in charge.
“To say I have sympathy for Rafa is the wrong word,” the Brighton manager said. “He and Newcastle will get results, whether it’s next week, or the week after.”
Brighton dedicated a first away league win in almost a year, sealed by Beram Kayal’s deft first-half touch, to Glenn Murray, the forward who will be assessed this week after being left unconscious by an early clash of heads.
“It was one of the worst sights I’ve seen on a football pitch,” Lewis Dunk, the defender, said. “He was knocked clean out, but thankfully he’s going to be all right.”