I wholeheartedly disagree, it was Perez' traditional uplift in form in the run in plus the freedom given to the players to attack more after safety was more assured. Kenedy was good, but his added spark wasn't in spite of Benitez but very much because Benitez brought him into the club to do that job. Credit goes to Kenedy for his form, but Benitez for bringing him in. You don't give Benitez any credit for it.
I have no issue giving Benitez credit for bringing in Kenedy on loan but he was into panic territory with his set up previous to bringing him in, with Perez being messed about and basically all players with any attacking mentality, asked to defend first and foremost.
The body language of the players stood out like a sore thumb and Rafa simply replaced them with those who were willing to simply defend first.
Once Kenedy was unleashed, Perez was allowed to play his game and so were many of those who were sacked off. It worked but would've worked earlier, as well.
We finished on more points, and given we cannot influence other teams' final positions it's the best measure of our success/failure/progress/decline.
We finished 13th from previous, 10th.
It's like you arguing that we finished 18th and relegated on more points than we finished 17th and stayed up, then telling me that's us going forward.
In his full seasons Benitez got us promoted as champions, kept us up first season back, then improved on that season's points tally. If that's average to you, then you have more unrealistic expectations of a manager than I do. Especially one working for this owner.
I wasn't unhappy with the finishes, even the 13th. What I was unhappy with was the way in which it all happened.
I expected better football from a superbly well paid manager that was taken to like some messiah by some fans and hyped to death by the media.
Better football was what I expected.
In the previous 10 seasons in the top flight we finished with fewer than 44points on 6 occasions. So, purely in terms of points returned for Newcastle United in the top flight he was above average.
Take out his championship season and let's see how that works out for him.
Under Ashley Newcastle have finished in the top half on 3 occasions in 12 seasons, one of those under Benitez. Again, better than average. Average PL league position under Ashley? 12.9. Average PL position for Benitez? 11.5. Better than average.
One of those seasons we finished 5th.
You repeat a line of reasoning I see on here; implying that he's a chequebook manager. He didn't want to spend £40m on Joelinton, he wanted to spend £16m on Rondon. How is that anything but working within his means? He was promised "every penny the club makes", but was not given that. £32m profit in his first full season, £22m loss in second (so still £10m up), £7m loss in his 3rd (still £3m up). That's working within his, and the clubs, means.
Nope. Look at what I did say.
Hughton played similarly pragmatic, defensive football to Benitez. And has done at every club he's managed since.
Not anywhere like Benitez did.
For me, I think it comes down tot he fact you don't like Benitez the man. Which is fine, you're free to dislike whoever you want, but the reasons you put forward just don't stack up to any kind of scrutiny.
I'm not too fond of Benitez, now but I was ok with him earlier on, until he started his shenanigans and cryptically blaming anyone and everyone for his mistakes and using the fans as his buffer to gain control and have it all his own way in a bluff against Ashley, to which Ashley called and off the mercenary went, to China, with the silly excuse of finding hi8s perfect project at the right time.
What a load of nonsense that was.
12 million a seas worth of blagging nonsense.
