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Media fail to understand necessary urgency with Mike Ashley and Rafa Benitez situation

5 years ago
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The Mike Ashley and Rafa Benitez contract situation drags on.

The Newcastle United owner asking the manager back in March what his (Rafa’s) conditions were in order to sign a new contract.

Over five weeks later and Rafa Benitez says he still hasn’t had any response.

I don’t think they are necessarily being soft on him on purpose but I can’t believe how the newspapers/media aren’t laying into Mike Ashley.

Their overwhelming take on it is so laidback, talking about end of seasons talks to break deadlock, also even talking about how there is plenty of time seen as Rafa’s current contract doesn’t end until 30 June…

It is quite ludicrous and a severe own goal.

The manager spelling it out a few days ago…

Rafa Benitez pre-Brighton press conference on Friday, when asked about any progress on contract situation:

“I will let you know when we have news…

“There is no timescale really (for an agreement to be reached)…but every day counts.

“You want to do everything possible to start working on things (for next season).”

I think Rafa Benitez is being incredibly restrained and if he does end up leaving, I think we will hear a lot from him about the sheer stupidity of the Mike Ashley regime. Never mind all of the dirty tricks and undermining of the manager.

In a way, this endless delay and refusal of Mike Ashley to give any clarity on the manager’s position, could even be seen as Ashley actually giving his answer.

Rafa has repeatedly said before every transfer window how he wants to get business done early, get targets tied up ASAP to avoid other clubs coming in for them, and now Mike Ashley appears blatantly to be ensuring this again, even if he does eventually make some kind of semi-reasonable offer to Benitez.

The transfer window opens in 16 days time, yes sixteen days.

The reality with pretty much any major transfer these days is that they are worked on over a period of time.

Rafa Benitez doesn’t even know whether he will be Newcastle manager next season, so you would really have to be a hopeless optimist to believe anything of consequence is happening on transfers behind the scenes.

ESPN report:

‘The transfer window will open on Thursday, May 16.

However, international transfers will not be possible until the FIFA international window opens on June 9, although for contractual reasons many deals will not be technically completed until July 1 or later.

The transfer window will then close at 5 p.m. BST on Thursday, Aug. 8 — with the new Premier League season scheduled to begin on the weekend of Saturday, Aug. 10.’

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