Rafa’s job is not to get the players through the door in each transfer window – his job is to identify to Lee Charnley and Mike Ashley the players he wants to be brought in and also the players he no longer has need for in the squad.
So there’s no doubt Rafa did his job for January with the players he wanted identified long before 2017 rolled around.
But we couldn’t get one player in, although to be fair we have to admit that January is always a very difficult window to get any good deals completed.
Rafa Benitez – Newcastle’s top manager
Maybe some work has been done to allow it to be easier in the summer to bring in say Andros Townsend and James McCarthy.
It will certainly be a lot easier if we are a Premier League club by then with world class manager Rafa Benitez in charge – we think lots of players will want to join the Rafa revolution this summer.
Benitez was asked if the poor results in the January transfer window were worrying him about what may happen in the summer.
This is how Rafa responded that that as reported in the Chronicle – and this was before the window closed last night:
“Because I am quite old now, I have experience with clubs and transfer windows and all these things.”
“What I have very clear in my mind is that you have to concentrate on one game at a time.”
“That means that we have to concentrate on this window and after that we will analyse what we did, right or wrong, and then we will think about the future.”
“I cannot be talking ‘if’, because it makes no sense until the window is over.”
“We have to wait, see what happens, at the end of the window we must see if we are strong enough to stay there and go up.”
“And after that we will see what we can do in the summer.”
“It’s a question of sitting down, for us to keep working hard and making the right decisions at the right time.”
“I am old so I have been at a lot of clubs with a lot of owners and different ways of doing business,”
“This is just another window.”
Benitez has been through the mill a few times in his management career and there is so much good will towards him on Tyneside that he will be able to shrug this off – as he goes all out to get Newcastle promoted.
We could be wrong (yes – it’s happened before) – but we think Mike Ashley is not foolish enough not to back Rafa 100% in this summer’s transfer window – especially if we are a Premier League club then and we spent zilch in January.
That’s always been the goal this season – and we can achieve that and make everybody associated with Newcastle very happy this summer – despite the disappointments of January in the FA Cup and transfer dealings.
That’s what we are hoping for – so it has to be upwards and onward in the next three months for the sake of Newcastle United.
And of course the Newcastle fans can be a great positive force that can make that happen.
16 comments so far
mindshaft
Feb 1, 2017 at 9:01 AM
Comment #1Rafa off in summer whether we get promoted or not – we’re a bag of sh1te cheapskate club
Jib
Feb 1, 2017 at 9:09 AM
Comment #2mindshaft //
Rafa off in summer whether we get promoted or not – we’re a bag of sh1te cheapskate club
😀
Some of these efforts at shitstirring are getting quite risible now .
posada
Feb 1, 2017 at 9:16 AM
Comment #3QPR had a tough game on Saturday.
Our first team had the weekend off.
Should that give us a big advantage tonight ?
Derby on Saturday. They put everything into their cup game last Friday night. But, still managed to beat Ipswich 3-0 away last night.
3 games in a week for them. Will that give us a big advantage ?
Interesting few days.
Big Squad ? Rafa Rotation ?
Over to our 4 million pound a year manager and his 90 million pound squad.
toontaff2
Feb 1, 2017 at 9:17 AM
Comment #4Disappointed with losing to Oxford, but happy with the team Rafa put out – majority thought we had a strong squad, so why was this team not capable of winning- poor defending from corners and poor finishing from BIGAL2.
mindshaft
Feb 1, 2017 at 9:18 AM
Comment #5Jib – this blog is about opinions , you can have yours and others can have theirs
Charlie in the Gallowgate
Feb 1, 2017 at 9:19 AM
Comment #6Next six weeks will make or break our season
10 games
5 against opposition going for automatic promotion or the play offs
plus Villa and Norwich
Going to be tough
H Queens Park Rangers
1st February
H Derby County
At St. James’ Park
4th February
A Wolverhampton Wanderers
11th February
A Norwich City
14th February
H Aston Villa
20th February
H Bristol City
25th February
A Brighton and Hove Albion
28th February
A Huddersfield Town
4th March
A Reading
7th March
H Fulham
11th March
SA Toon
Feb 1, 2017 at 9:27 AM
Comment #7It’s obviously disappointing that we didn’t land Townsend during this window, but we need to put that behind us and just focus on securing automatic promotion. Assuming we make it, they’ll be plenty of time to bring in new quality players to help us settle back into the Premier League. I would far rather fight on with the squad we have than see us splash out vast sums on mediocre players who might not be good enough to mount any sort of challenge in the top flight. Big game tonight though! We must get all three points as February has a number of tough fixtures. HWTL
nightfa11
Feb 1, 2017 at 10:12 AM
Comment #8How are we a cheapskate club.. Offered 16 for McCarthy, 25 mio for 2 kids from an average league.. And apparently 13 for Townsend..thats far from cheap.. Im glad we didnt land Townsend.. The guy is a Journey man, who only had 5 good months in his career..those first months with us.. Other than that he was below average..
wynsleap
Feb 1, 2017 at 10:27 AM
Comment #9Ed – you can dress it up whichever way you like and talk about the positive things and our ‘world class manager’ etc but the simple, unavoidable fact is that the window has been a disaster.
We know what happened when Shelvey was out of the first team. A major injury to Jonjo and we haven’t got one player fit to lace his boots in midfield. No creativity and no midfield dominance, only players trying to ‘do their best’. That’s not good enough.
Oh – almost forgot – we have Colback!!!
It’s another huge gamble by Ashley who I am sure is behind this latest non-event.
A bad result and a poor performance tonight and the atmosphere will be troublesome.
SeanNufc87
Feb 1, 2017 at 10:37 AM
Comment #10Or Mo… Who’s back shortly. It’s the exact same team that got us to where we are, we had an almighty blip when we lost 2 creative players to Afcon and Shelvey to suspension and lacked that bit if magic. Gayle Mo and atsu will be back shortly and things won’t seem as bad.
Moonraker15
Feb 1, 2017 at 11:02 AM
Comment #11I don’t think Rafa is going anywhere in the summer. As I said before he has vast experience of working with owners/chairmen a lot worse than Ashley and he knows when he’s onto something good even with the odd knock back! Compare him with that Karanka at Boro who is having a go at Steve Gibson. Also, Rafa is probably the only manager who doesn’t need the money although he’s not stupid enough to give up 5 million a year!
We are privileged to have a man of his class as a proud manager of our club!
yorkymag
Feb 1, 2017 at 11:02 AM
Comment #12Charlie
You right it is a tough schedule
But draws or wins against theses rivals are double wammys
10 more wins and we will go up
Interesting out of top 7 only ourselves and Brighton can get less points per game to win promotion than we have achieved so far i.e. 1.5 and 1.6 respectively
The others in the top 7 have to improve derby and Wednesday for example need to go from 1.6 points per game to 2.4 so a draw against derby would be very acceptable
If you follow my logic!!!
Toontaff
Feb 1, 2017 at 12:14 PM
Comment #13Bull shit what a pathetic statement
LambethMag
Feb 1, 2017 at 12:23 PM
Comment #14Knee jerk blind panic or what!
Listen, we’re on track to achieve what we set out to achieve in August. Promotion!
We’re a club in transition who are on the first rung of the ladder, with a manager we never in our wildest dreams believed would be at our club. He knows what he’s doing, so let him get on with it.
We all know next summer is crucial in terms of signings and moving forward. But we’ve got a job to do before then. Let’s get behind the manager and the players and help them achieve what we all want for this season. Rant over!
WLtoon
Feb 1, 2017 at 4:57 PM
Comment #15A week in football is a long time.
Before the Oxford game there was no sign of discord amongst the fans, then we hear that they were fighting each other at the game.
Add the fact that we got stuffed, and all of a sudden we are looking a shambles.
We must have the most fickle fans in the country.
We are still 2nd in the lge with 2 games in hand over our nearest rivals,and 3 of our first team squad are due back .which will make us stronger than we have been in recent wks.
If we win tonight i think its business as usual, if we lose then i think it could be squeaky bum time from now til the end of the season.
thecaptain9
Feb 1, 2017 at 5:12 PM
Comment #16Well said. We are right where we need to be… I’d rather be 2nd, focused on the target to beat and not looking over our shoulder at who’s chasing. We’ve tonked most of the teams in the league, we didn’t need panic buying in January. As Rafa says ‘one game at time’ – eyes on the prize.