Rafa fearing the worst at Newcastle

ExTREMADURA were a minor Spanish club from the town of Almendralejo, near the Portuguese border. Almendralejo’s population is roughly the size of a capacity crowd at Pride Park, Derby, and the club spent just two of their 50 seasons in Spain’s top division.

Mostly, Extremadura played in the third tier or below. In 2010, they ran out of money and folded. Extremadura UD, currently in Segunda Division B, is a different club.

So for Rafa Benitez to compare the challenge he faces at Newcastle this season to that of managing Extremadu- ra’s return to La Liga in 1998-99 is a damning indictment of Mike Ashley’s regime. If Ashley is seeking reference points from Benitez’s career, surely Newcastle should be trying to emulate Valencia, a third-city club who thought big and, for a time, challenged the supremacy of Spain’s establishment elite.

Given limited backing — it was not as if Valencia outspent Barcelona or Real Madrid — Benitez worked wonders, winning the domestic title and the UEFA Cup in 2003-04.

Nobody is suggesting Newcastle could

achieve that, certainly short-term, but for Benitez to see parallels in the task at extremadura shows how concerned he is about the coming campaign. Cynics might argue he is merely talking newcastle down, so that even slender survival is viewed as achievement, but he is above that.

Unlike several recent newcastle managers, Benitez is a hero on tyneside. He doesn’t need victory in a Pr war, he needs to win football matches. He couldn’t keep extremadura up in 1999, and if he fears history repeating that’s a worry.