Rafa realises he just has Bto get on with it but is up for the fight
RAFA BENITEZ last night reiterated his vow not to walk away from Newcastle United after owner Mike Ashley publicly spelled out why the club can’t compete financially with most of their Premier League rivals.
The Spaniard has reluctantly accepted the limitations imposed by Ashley, even though he believes that the goal-posts have been shifted since he won the Championship in May, with indictations that larger funds would be available not materialising.
He goes into today’s season opener against Tottenham having spent just £30m on five players. But Benitez says his decision to stay is in no small part to keep his promises to his players.
“The truth is it has never crossed my mind to walk away,” he says.
“I want to stay because we fought so hard to be here and we have a whole city behind the team.
“I don’t want to be egotistical, but I have players who wanted to come here because of me and I couldn’t let them down.
“Also, a couple who were signing new contracts asked me if I would sign my contract – and they decided to stay because I gave them my word.
“When I was at Liverpool, I received a huge offer from Real Madrid. But I gave my word to Liverpool and I was happy with my decision.
“I stayed here in the Championship and that was a massive risk for me.
“Having said that, I won La Liga for Valencia for the first time in 31 years
and they promised me money – but they gave me nothing. In those circumstances it was easier to leave.
“But you have to put all the factors together and ask yourself what you want to do. Despite the problems, I wanted to stay.
“The club pays me my salary because they trust me and I have won trophies. I am not demanding crazy things, just to do things in a professional way.
“I was expecting it could be like this, even though it wasn’t exactly what I was thinking.
“Of course, I wanted to compete at the top of the Premier League. Can we do it now? I don’t know, but it will be more difficult.
“Am I happy with what has gone on during the summer? No, but we can improve and compete if we do the right things and if we understand where we are.
“We have to be realistic, and realistic means every single game has to be a final.
“In my career, my best achievements were at Tenerife when we were playing against Atletico Madrid, Real Betis and Sevilla in the Second Division.
“We had no money but we had a team that was together. There weren’t two clubs in the city and everyone was supporting the team, just like here.
“The problem we have is that if you compare us with Huddersfield or with Brighton, they are not expecting anything.
“Here, after we won promotion, everyone was expecting that we had to be in the top eight.
“Now if say: ‘I want to finish in the top eight’, the fans would be over the moon. If I say: ‘I just want to avoid relegation’, they will say: ‘Oh, we are in a relegation battle already’.
“So I don’t want to aim for either thing. We just have to fight to be as high as possible and do the right things so we can be in a good position. And then maybe we can be better.
“We have a squad with commitment, but we need to see how the players perform in the Premier League.
“We have to change a Championship squad to be a Premier League squad without the money that teams have in the last few years from TV because we are a bit behind the others.
“We have to compensate that by doing the right things all the time and sticking together.”