Ashley has to support Rafa before it’s too late
IF I were allowed to put just one question to Mike Ashley today it would be this: “What would you do if Rafa Benitez left right now?”
Because the treatment a worldclass manager is receiving from above is enough to force a proud man out amid humiliation.
Newcastle have one of the best managers on the globe and you would think that Ashley, having given us the disasters that were Joe Kinnear and Steve McClaren, would treasure him.
Yet it doesn’t appear so because he hasn’t so far been backed in the transfer market and without that backing United will struggle badly this coming season.
So I repeat, what would you do, Ashley?
At this stage in the summer it would be an unmitigated disaster. Who would come? Another world-beater?
Think of the effect, too, it would have on fans who only believe because of Rafa, and players who rate him so, so highly.
United would be as badly off as Sunderland whose owner Ellis Short cannot sell the club and has been forced to scramble for the Preston manager to take charge with nothing having been done in the transfer market. I’m not saying that Rafa is about to walk out, but he has been badly let down so far and he knows it. And so do the fans. Ashley dare not run the risk of him suddenly going. Rafa built a squad last season to win promotion, which it did. He didn’t build it for the Premier League and it’s well short of that class. United need half-a-dozen top-quality signings. Is Lee Charnley going to pull that off before the end of August? And will Ashley back it financially? The bottom line is that Newcastle will make pennies from outgoing sales while Bournemouth and others are splashing out big time, not to mention the top six who are in a totally different league. The likes of Bournemouth and Watford are striving to become established PL clubs despite their obvious limitations but are Newcastle? They have been relegated twice on Ashley’s watch and it’s unthinkable that they could become a yo-yo club.
What I cannot understand is Ashley’s ambitions for the club. He is in a privileged position when it comes to the number of fans United attract and you would feel he would want to cash in on that by launching a concerted effort to drive the club forward. Its value would rise in proportion to its success.
Yet the feeling we are repeatedly left with is that being a middle-of-theroad survivor is more than enough.
I repeat, Ashley has got himself a top, top manager in Rafa Benitez and having got lucky he should be thrilled to bits and be determined to take full advantage. Instead United live on a permanent knife edge.
Rafa is still here because of the fans, not the owner.
They persuaded him when relegation was confirmed and persuaded him every match played in the Championship against less than glamorous opponents.
Now is the time to back Benitez to the hilt before it becomes too late.