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How long can Rafa last?

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prica's crown said:
re the net spend argument, id say they lost sissoko, 'gini' and townsend of the main guys, but they were better off without the first two as they didn't pull their weight, just so happens they got insane money for them.
they got rid of stacks of others from an enormous squad but if I remember the majority were misfits and frozen out.

we lost pickford and defoe who were our only two passable players last season and spent 1.5m to bring in ten new players.

Benitez already had a team good enough to go up, and by getting gayle, Ritchie he bought two premier standard players as close as guaranteed to be good enough, plus yedlin for a bargain 4m- but most his others have been poor signings I reckon.

even this term, other than merino who looks a steal id argue he woud have been better to keep murphy/play mitrovic than sign josulu, use who he had instead of signing murphy and lejuineeeeee and manquillo.

then spend his funds on merino and a v high standard striker which I reckon would have been the better choice.
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As I've said I don't think the team we had after the mercenaries departed would have been promoted. Our best players last season were arguably Clark, Gayle, Hayden, Ritchie and Shelvey. 4/5 were summer signings and I doubt we'd have been promoted without them.
 

King Kareoke said:
Tin Hat On - he has done a reasonably good job at steadying the ship (after a fair chunk of money it has to be said) especially as I still think he bollixed the relegation. They are reasonably organised and at times hard to beat. If anything however he is a tad defensive in the way they set up and appear to not always have a Plan B - for a world class manager this approach seems strange and I am convinced if it was anyone other than Rafa (their saviour) he would be getting more stick about the playing style
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We've played plan B in the last two fixtures. Benitez prefers a 4-2-3-1, but due to squad constraints and the form of key positions we played 4-4-2.

There's a myth that Newcastle fans demand cavalier football. We didn't under Hughton, we don't under Benitez. We don't mind if the football is pragmatic if it's successful and/or the only style we can really play given our squad.
 
I think he’s a decent manager but isn’t suited to smaller clubs. His transfer business is bewildering. 40 million spent in the summer on worse players than they already had. You can’t get away with that without the billions of the top clubs
 
The Fish said:
We've played plan B in the last two fixtures. Benitez prefers a 4-2-3-1, but due to squad constraints and the form of key positions we played 4-4-2.

There's a myth that Newcastle fans demand cavalier football. We didn't under Hughton, we don't under Benitez. We don't mind if the football is pragmatic if it's successful and/or the only style we can really play given our squad.
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Fair do's you watch them I don't - the matches I have seen though if you go 1-0 behind it does seem to be an issue of changing momentum - and I am more than use to seeing a side go behind!!
 
samaistonsrightfoot said:
I think he’s a decent manager but isn’t suited to smaller clubs. His transfer business is bewildering. 40 million spent in the summer on worse players than they already had. You can’t get away with that without the billions of the top clubs
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I agree with some of them- quite a lot of misses, a bit like our approach of not buying the likes of evans, m'vila, Alonso or others for being too expensive at say 8m, then buying 4-5 2m players over 2-3 seasons who cant even get in the squad costing more!
 
The Fish said:
Who's that?
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Joselu who looks awful. Murphy who can’t get a game ahead of Perez who you’ve already said wasn’t even good in the championship, and Atsu who was in and out of the side in the championship, Lejuene (has he finished on a winning side yet? Wins were when he was injured weren’t they?) and Manquillo. The only one to make any sort of impact in a squad playing championship football last year is Merino and he was benched for the games, for whatever reason, in the lead up to getting injured.

It’s not just Newcastle btw. Look at his signings at Liverpool. Brought in on average about 10 a season while he was there and bar the big signings like Torres and Alonso, who he later decided was worse than Barry, the majority were shite.

Good manager but poor in the market. He was complaining the other day that Man Utd have more to spend. I’d expect a side that turns over half a billion p/y to spend more mind. In fact I’d hazard a guess that Benitez has spent a higher percentage of turnover than Utd have.

Haven’t seen him complaining about Huddersfield or Brighton’s transfer spends after losing to them, mind
 
The Fish said:
Did he? After the dust settled our first team would have looked something like

Elliott
Sterry? Mbemba Lascelles Dummett
Shelvey Colback
Ameobi Perez Aarons
Mitrovic​

Would you call that team better than most of the Championship? I wouldn't

He's clearly a very good manager, with the full support of the fanbase and a great deal of respect in the game too.
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Aye very much so. Also forgetting names he could have played that he chose to sell and get money for like Wijnaldum and Jaanmat.
 
HeaderDownBrown said:
:lol: He's that good a manager he's getting credited with taking Valencia to 2 champions league finals before he took over! Cheers for the easy 'loaded question'.
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What a manager! Also he won the premier league with Chelsea in 2004/5, he might not have been there till 4 years later but still :lol:

1892 said:
So, over the last 12 years, how many other posts have you made on football forums expressing your criticism of him?
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Quite a few mate, I remember a few years ago getting pelters from people saying I would not have him here, I stand by my word to this very day although he would not have done worse than Moyes/Grayson.

King Kareoke said:
Tin Hat On - he has done a reasonably good job at steadying the ship (after a fair chunk of money it has to be said) especially as I still think he bollixed the relegation. They are reasonably organised and at times hard to beat. If anything however he is a tad defensive in the way they set up and appear to not always have a Plan B - for a world class manager this approach seems strange and I am convinced if it was anyone other than Rafa (their saviour) he would be getting more stick about the playing style
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This is my point, I actually think he has done a canny job at Newcastle, he just is not world class and deserving to be holding Newcastle to ransom potentially over funds.
 
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Ceverton said:
Summer 2016 Benitez has the best squad in the championship, spends £54m and then about another £40m the following summer.

Hughton at Brighton and Wagner at Huddersfield started summer 2016 with much weaker teams than Newcastle (especially Huddersfield). Both teams have spent less than Newcastle since summer 2016.

12 games into following season and about 16 months on from that summer, Newcastle are below both Brighton and Huddersfield.

Lots of talk the other day on the radio that Benitez will hand in his resignation if takeover falls through and he does not get funds to spend. Why does he have such a strong bargaining position? Are people still going on about a cup win in 2005?
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In fairness, they probably didn't even spend money last summer because they sold Wijnaldum and Sissoko for about a combined £70m.
 
RichD said:
Because He's been very clever regarding keeping the fans on side, I can't remember seeing him ever coming out and backing the owner (even when they win the championship) plus it's dead easy to keep on saying I need more money to spend to compete with top clubs knowing it would take billions to achieve...Aye very clever is old Rafa...
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He's played the gravy-stained pastie munchers beautifully.

Any criticisms are glossed over with a few coats of "World class manager"

He could rock up to work wearing a Fatty Mike Pipes off Dogs t-shirt and he'd still be impossible to sack
 
In summary he’s not a world class manager anymore. I would argue he was once very close

However in terms of what manager we ‘deserve’ I think we’re fortunate to have him and punching well above our weight

He will walk If takeover talks breakdown, but I’ll shed no tears. I don’t want him out, but if he goes then at least we might ‘go for it’ in certain games we should be (Burnley, Bournemouth)

Net spend and Brighton on holiday talk is just ridiculous considering your league position, and anyone should see it’s a hard league to be promoted from, so he done his job well there
 
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