It’s happened everyone. Newcastle United have sacked their manager Steve McClaren less than a year after signing his three year contract. Quite a loss for Mike Ashley but of course he’ll be losing a lot more if the Magpies are relegated from the Premier League come May. To combat the drop he’s brought in everyone’s favourite fat Spanish waiter, Rafa Benitez.
Quite a surprising appointment when you take into account that the former Liverpool boss started out this season at Real Madrid...imagine dancing with a load of stunners at the beginning of a night out and then going home with the fat lass from the bus stop and that’s a vague outline of Benitez’s season.
With what seems to be quite a decent squad left for Benitez to play with, safety could very well be a possibility, if not for one big thing standing in his way...Sam Allardyce. Yes the Sunderland boss who has never been relegated from the Premier League looks to have turned The Black Cats around and are the team with the biggest survival hopes at this point.
For me though, looking at the Magpies fixtures, they pose just as much a possibility of staying up. They have fellow strugglers Norwich and Villa as well as a home fixture against out of form Crystal Palace. But before all that there’s the Tyne-Wear Derby where Newcastle’s season could be decided.
The Tyne-Wear Derby, in recent years, seems to have become no more than a gift of 3 points to Sunderland as The Black Cats have won their last six in concession and have not lost in their last eight. If Benitez wants any hope of survival he needs to win this six-pointer.
Moving on from the fixtures I want to talk about the squad Rafa has inherited. McClaren has just spent almost £30 million on to help keep his job which for me is like buying petrol for your car when you can’t drive it. He can buy all the things he needed to make it work but the man is clueless and in my opinion won’t be working in England after this departure...but I digress…
Jonjo Shelvey was one of the signings. A player who for me seems to think he could fit in well with Barcelona’s passing style but couldn’t even fit into Swansea’s. A good signing none the less and could be an important player in Newcastle’s survival.
Andros Townsend was another who, at one point, was considered the next big thing for England, fell out of Spurs’ team and is now regarded as a flop and a shit player? I seriously have no clue where this came from. For me he’s still that player who scored that ripper on his England debut, he might not be considered “good enough” for Tottenham but he’ll do a job at many other Premier League clubs. Very good signing.
~ Side note: that third player McClaren signed, Henri Saivet? Not a clue who he is to be honest. He can’t hurt the cause I suppose but I don’t know enough about him to pass a judgement. Just incase people were wondering ~
If you combine those two with the likes of Wijnaldum who I believe to be a world class player, Sissoko who I’m led to believe is really out of form at the moment but is very good on his day, Janmaat who provides a good attacking threat from right back as well as a good defensive ability and Mitrovic who hasn’t scored many but looks to cause problems when he plays you can see that Newcastle have the quality to stay up.
~ For the record I really want to write a post about Wijnaldum. This player can play any role in any team in the league for me. No one, not even Newcastle fans, will agree with me but honestly, if Newcastle stay up we’ll be seeing the best of Gigi next season ~
All they have needed is a manager with a bit of character, an idea, a plan. As I stated before I think McClaren is clueless, doing nothing managerially in England since his days at Middlesborough. The man couldn’t even get the Golden Generation to the fucking European Championships! The fucking Golden generation! Even Fabio Capello could do that and he didn’t even speak fucking English! Oh and another thing…
~ It was at this point I ranted in my head for an hour before having a cup of tea and settling down...how British ~
Apologies for that, it’s a touchy subject. As I was saying Benitez has a plan he sets his teams out to exploit weaknesses in the opposition and he is ruthless, expecting no less than 100%. He’s also one of those managers who has the ability to work with good players as well as get the best out of average ones.
I mean, come on, he won the Champions League with a Liverpool side that had Gerrard and Alonso in midfield but with Djimi Traore at the back...against an AC Milan team that had a legend in every position of the pitch. Genuinely just Google that Milan team from the final and tell me how they got beat by a team that had Steve Finnan at right back.
~ To be fair that’s quite harsh. Steve Finnan was actually alright...but Traore? ~
Last thing I want to talk about regarding this is the relegation clause Benitez has requested for in his contract. The Spaniard may be taking a risk coming here but he’s not stupid. He knows it’s a tough job and wanted an insurance policy incase he couldn’t do it. I’m sure he has confidence in his ability as a manager but he can’t rely on players he’s never managed before to decide his future...can’t blame him for that in all honesty.
Hopefully the Benitez can turn the Toon around, but for me the only way they can turn around is if Mike Ashley leaves the club for good. The man is dragging the team down and doesn’t seem to notice the damage he’s doing. I mean who brings in McClaren after he couldn’t even get Derby in the fucking play offs?! Getting beat to it by clubs like Ipswich and fucking Brentford! And another thing…
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Cheers for reading.
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