Tag: Rafa Benitez

Mike Ashley is a small-time, cheap, unambitious, pig-headed, clueless, stubborn fool

Mike Ashley has done a lot of things at Newcastle. Most of it inconceivable to a Newcastle fan. But his latest venture in making Rafa Benitez’ time on Tyneside untenable tops the lot.

The question is why is he doing what he is doing? Why is he blatantly refusing to support him and not making every effort to keep him here for years to come?

Some say it’s perhaps there is a possible sale of the club in the offing so for him to spend any money isn’t in his interest, nor is the future of the club. This is wide of the mark IMO.

Others say it’s because he refuses to allow a manager with one year left on his contract to spend money on players and then leave at the end of the year, which would then leave a scenario of a new manager wanting his own players. This is closer to the mark IMO.

But even this doesn’t really make sense as the ONLY way Rafa would sign a new deal is if the club back him. Not the other way round that Ashley wants it. If you sign a deal, then we will spend…promise. Despite our diabolical record of doing so. Rafa is not so stupid to lock himself into a no-win situation, again.

Mike Ashley is a stubborn clueless fool who only plays by his own rules based on the fact it has served him well in creating the UK’s biggest sports retailer, so in his head, why change?

Well isn’t it obvious why you should change? If you have the record Ashley has over the past 10 years as NUFC owner, whatever mindset you had must be torn up and start again, This should have been done years ago, never mind now.

If you have been making terrible mistakes and nonsense decisions time & time & time again, then at some point you basically give up trying to make decisions and let someone else do it.

That person should be Rafa Benitez. Ashley has a hard time trusting people. He tends to trust morons and con artists like Llambias, Jimenez, Kinnear, Wise etc. Which says a lot about his character.

Ashley should be feeding off Rafa and listening to his plans and be helping him build his project. The man clearly knows what he is doing. It’s obvious. Look at his career!

But no. Ashley refuses to be playing second fiddle to some Spanish manager who thinks he’s special. It’s his club so he calls the shots. Total ego-maniac moron. The lack of ambition inside the walls of the boardroom is frightening. Terrifying in fact.

Imagine having a manager whose last job was Real Madrid and has the trophies he has on his CV and not trust him to make signings when we were in the Championship not long ago?

Imagine not allowing him to do what he wants to do? Unthinkable to anyone with a brain. Or to anyone with true ambition. Charnley, Bishop and Barnes are not fit for purpose.

All men hired by Ashley are idiots and con men. This massive stain on Ashley’s character is the biggest issue NUFC have had and continued to have. We never have the right men in place where it counts.

We have a thoroughbred horse of a manager in the stable but his keeper doesn’t know how or even want to feed him and his trainer can’t be bothered to keep him fit. His owner nowhere to be seen and deprives him of what he needs. So will he fulfil his potential? Of course not.

Newcastle need a new owner. Once they do this will bring a new chairman, CEO etc and finally the manager can be able to do his job. There is only one way this happens and it’s if Ashley sells up.

Two things can create a sale. Someone comes along from no where and pays a fee Ashley can’t refuse or Ashley lowers his price and looks for a sale himself.

The fans have a job to force Ashley’s hand. A half empty stadium speaks volumes. Disrupt his Sports Direct stores, this will also send a message to him “directly”. The fans must try to force Ashley to sell as a random billionaire coming along has much chance of a Euromillions win for you or me.

The fans must do their part. To continue to just fill out the stadium and carry on regardless will do nothing. Rafa will leave in the summer and Ashley will remain to do whatever he wants.

Ashley is a small time, cheap, unambitious, pig-headed, clueless, stubborn fool. He must be removed for Newcastle to ever reach its potential. This is a fact.

The Ginger Pirlo

Mitro is on fire and he is making Rafa look ridiculous

Just a word on the Mitrovic situation.

Mitro has not been given one league start all season. The one game he did start was in the League cup and scored. He mugged off Joe Hart in a Premier League game whilst scoring, elbowed someone and seemed shunned for it.

On fire

His (basically) replacement Joselu has been nothing short of terrible in front of goal this season. He had a 7 game spell where he started each game but scored in none of them. Yet Mitro was not brought in to end this nonsense.

Joselu has only 4 goals to his name in 20 appearances. One of those goals was the ridiculous ricochet against Liverpool and two were open goals. Mitro was only two goals behind despite no starts and a handful of appearances which were mainly 10 to 20-minute spell at the end of games.

Mitrovic has gone to Fulham on loan and has already bagged 5 in 4 games. He is actually Newcastle Utd’s top scorer with 7 goals…

Sheff Utd boss said the following after he tore their defence apart, “Mitro is too good for the Championship and should be playing for Newcastle. He is a £15m Premier League striker who is going to the World Cup.”

Whereas Joselu hasn’t started any of Newcastle’s last four games or had many minutes off the bench since ironically the 31st January, deadline day, where he missed a penalty and missed a massive chance against Burnley to seal all three points. We ended up dropping two points that day.

Rafa Benitez may be a lot of things. He may have a lot of trophies. But if Newcastle Utd are relegated this season by a point or two, than Rafa Benitez will be 100% responsible. 100%.

I want to make it this perfectly clear so everyone understands this.

It won’t be Ashley’s fault. It won’t be Lee Charnley. It won’t be Amanda Staveley. It will be Rafa’s. Ashley gave Rafa a shorthand this season, no doubt about it. Rafa moaned every week at the lack of quality to choose from and rightly so.

Useless

However, he has refused to select arguably our best all-round striker for the entire campaign, who no doubt would have scored and created more goals than Joselu and would have put more points on the board to have kept this club up.

Make no mistake about it. Don’t be confused. This is pretty much a cast iron fact

when you look at the young Serbian tearing up the Championship and dragging his country to the World Cup.

Rafa Benitez hasn’t properly explained his decision as to why he has made our clubs job a whole lot harder in trying to stay in this league. Quotes of ‘not working hard enough in training’ or ‘he doesn’t fit tactically’ are weak explanations to say the least.

Especially when you consider just how dire Joselu was and still is with his

supposed extra ability to run more in training and tactical efficiency. Plus speaking of tactics, I could go on about how Rafa’s over cautious approach in home games has also cost us this season but that’s for another day.

Bye and good luck

If we go down. Rafa will walk off into the sunset to a top job and restart a project for himself somewhere else, whereas it will be the Newcastle fans who are left to pick up and deal with the unimaginable sh**house he left behind.

Explaining himself isn’t even the start of it.

Mitro’s on fire and Newcastle don’t have a pot to p**s in. Work that one out. And people say beggars can’t be choosers.

The shocking truth behind the failed Chelsea’s Kenedy deal. It’s totally unacceptable…

Charnley

As a Newcastle fan it is obvious our window was beyond a joke built up of lies and misery. However, I just want to make clear to everyone how either incompetent our administration is or how scumbaggery they are towards our official ‘UEFA Elite Coach’ Rafa Benitez. Or perhaps they are both.

We had in place a deal for Chelsea left back Kenedy sorted TWO WEEKS AGO but it could only be finalised once Chelsea brought in a first team wing back themselves. Fine.
Oxlade-Chamberlain was their first choice but that fell through on Deadline Day morning as he joined Liverpool. So, my amazing club concluded that the Kenedy deal was off.

Now, this is where some serious explaining needs to happen as at 2.30pm Chelsea agreed a fee for Zappacosta in light of missing out on the Ox. The whole football world knew this as the fact he had Costa in his name brought great attention. So, the Kenedy deal to NUFC is back on right? Apparently no.

Despite there being a good 8 hours or so for Newcastle to get in contact with Chelsea and sort out arrangements for Kenedy making his way to the North East in anticipation of Zappacosta signing, which in turn we could confirm Kenedy…Newcastle Utd announced at 7 pm that they had shut up shop with no more business for the day.

Apparently no. Despite there being a good 8 hours or so for Newcastle to get in contact with Chelsea and sort out arrangements for Kenedy making his way to the North East in anticipation of Zappacosta signing, which in turn we could confirm Kenedy…Newcastle Utd announced at 7 pm that they had shut up shop with no more business for the day.

Are you having a laugh?
Rafa Benitez has woke up this morning to a first team that is minus a left back. A left back that he had lined up a fortnight ago. Chelsea have their new wing back in place to make the deal happen, so why don’t we have it?
This isn’t due to time restraints as Zappacosta was in place many many hours before the window was due to shut. If Zappacosta deal somehow fell through, then Kenedy would too. That’s fine.
But to not have Kenedy at the training ground last night with medical done just waiting for the nod from Chelsea after Zappacosta was confirmed is totally unforgivable for its senseless incompetence.

Newcastle Utd is ran by con men who should be nowhere near the positions they hold. A 15-year-old boy addicted to Football Manager could conduct transfer activity better than them.

Or maybe it’s down to they just don’t want to bring any much needed new players in. That means spending money. Which we all know Premier League clubs don’t have….?

So in which case…what are you doing here? Get out of my club. What possible enjoyment do Ashley and his administration get out of it? Name me one thing? Shambles.

Once Rafa walks, everybody else should too.  Fans first, then Ashley will follow. It’s the only way to get rid of him. He isn’t interested in owning a club with an empty stadium. He will sell and we can finally move on.

The Ginger Pirlo.

We need to talk about Rafa…

My thoughts on Sunday’s game are similar ones to those I have had over the past year watching Rafa Benitez’s team. We lack depth, we lack width and we lack movement off the ball whilst in possession. Pretty much the absolute basics of attacking play. Rafa may (rightfully) moan about missing out on specific transfer targets earlier in the window but this does not explain his needlessly negative strategy, line-ups and substitutions.

Before I go off on a possible rant I would like to make one thing perfectly clear, we are not a bad team. Don’t buy into the mainstream football media’s avalanche of misery they insist on piling onto our club whenever things don’t seem 100% right from the outside looking in. We were not outplayed by Huddersfield, much like we weren’t outplayed by Spurs last week when 11v11, and apart from their goal, the newly-promoted side hardly made a dent in terms of hurting our back line.

Out of both sides, it was us that had the biggest chance of the game when Ayoze Perez blasted over when completely unmarked from about 8 yards out. Substitutes Joselu & Murphy had opportunities to have a clear shot on goal but failed to make the most of them. Out of both goalkeepers, it was Huddersfield’s Jossl that had to pull off a fingertip save to keep out Ritchie’s effort in the first half. If that chance, or any of these chances, go in then it’s a different game and likely different result.

Mooy

Now that the positives are out of the way, yes, they were positives honest, there is a big elephant in everyone’s room on Tyneside that nobody wants or is prepared to talk about. Some refuse to even acknowledge its very existence under any circumstances mainly due to bigger worries and concerns. However, at some stage, this has to be discussed and looked at. At some point, we need to talk about Rafa.

Amongst all the lack of transfers stuff & the Mike Ashley stuff and whatever other stuff fans want to talk or moan about, there has been one massively concerning issue that has been staring us all in the face over the past year. Rafa Benitez’s overly cautious and needlessly negative approach to our games. More specifically his tactics and use of the personnel he has at his disposal. Do we lack some quality? Yes. Do we have any quality? Yes. Is that quality being used in its capacity? No.

How we managed to win the Championship was quite remarkable to be perfectly honest. You can count on one hand the amount of games where we actually looked impressive and destroyed teams that were below our level. No one can say our Championship season wasn’t one hell of a long struggle. Some say, ‘well that’s the Championship’, maybe.

Ritchie

The more accurate thing to say, however, is that we caused our own frustrations by not going about our business on the pitch anywhere near as positively and ambitiously as we should have. Wingers dropping deep and always coming short. Full-backs chained to the halfway line and unable to get forward. Both centre midfielders dropping deep right in front of our centre-backs. It’s needless and it’s wrong.

Against Huddersfield, these demons in Rafa’s philosophy raised their ugly head once again. 99% will put this down to ‘lack of quality’ or ‘they need more players’. I am telling you now, even with new and/or better players that won’t dispel the demons. The football club needs to change its philosophy when it comes to being cheap in the transfer market. But Rafa also needs to change his philosophy with the players he has. Neither are good enough at the moment.

Follow on Twitter @ToonBano

WATCH: Rafa Completely Burns Mitrovic In Training! But Will Start Him Tomorrow

Rafa got his skills out in training as he attempts to teach Mitro a thing a two on how to take somebody on. He pretty much burns him alive to the point he’s on fire…well, hopefully for Saturday!

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Mitro scored a brace for the Serbs in International week so is red hot at the minute and raring to go, despite being mugged off by Rafa. Our Spanish boss will surely now release him into the wild against Brentford on Saturday as we finally play with two strikers on the pitch from the start.

We have been subjected to Diame playing in the hole for most of this season and it hasn’t been a success, despite the team winning most games in the end. We currently sit 3rd in the league which isn’t a great return after 11 games giving the poor standards of the Championship in relation to our squad.

Sticking Mitro up front with Gayle is surely the way forward from now on, especially at home….even if he gets burned now and again!

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