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Thread: Rafa

  1. #11
    Join Date
    Dec 2006
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    15,596
    Quote Originally Posted by Curian View Post
    Fair point it's just my old fashioned way of looking at football and the mad amounts of money involved. I am sure Rafa would more that recoup his costs
    No, I agree - the money in football is immoral and sickening, but this being the case for players then this is not a high value for such a great manager.

  2. #12
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    Mar 2018
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    Considering the offer from China according to Sly Sports News.

  3. #13
    Join Date
    May 2006
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    46,461
    Well if he's considering, it might push our **** of an owner to move on his last offer.

    I personally can't see him going to China, regardless of what happens with us.

  4. #14
    Join Date
    Aug 2006
    Posts
    20,180
    whether he is actually considering it or not ...

    he isn't going to just reject it out of hand...

    he isn't daft he will keep as many options open as possible ... and/or keep possibly influential people onside for future dealings if he finds it necessary at some time in the future.

  5. #15
    Join Date
    Mar 2018
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    Well George Caulkin who a lot of us on here have a lot of time for seems to think from what he is hearing that Rafa is away.Had enough.
    I will try and post the piece for you all to read.

  6. #16
    Join Date
    Mar 2018
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    3,913
    The story of Newcastle United’s summer is a story of stasis and, as things stand, there will not be a happy ending, not as far as Rafa Benítez is concerned. With nine days to go until the manager’s contract ends at St James’ Park, talks about an extension have stalled and China is beckoning, offering money (lots of it), and a different sort of challenge. Benítez has one hand on the exit and trust has already left the building.

    Nine days more, but it feels too late. As The Times reported earlier this week, Dalian Yifang head a list of Chinese Super League clubs seeking to negotiate with Benítez once his deal expires, prepared to offer him a £12 million salary. For them, the attraction is clear: a Champions League-winning manager available without compensation. For him, it is about impatience and narrowing options.

    The backdrop to this story is both simple and complicated, featuring a dysfunctional club with its baffling owner, one of the best, most ambitious coaches of his generation, fractured relationships and a tortuous takeover saga that has delayed and disrupted everything. Once again, Newcastle find themselves on a precipice and, once again, nobody has pushed them there. They teeter and wobble, much of it their own doing.

    Even with that context, it seems incomprehensible that Newcastle could have reached this point. Three years on from his arrival on Tyneside, when he spoke about an ailing club’s history and stature, Benítez is adored by supporters, hauling an honest team back from the Sky Bet Championship at the first attempt and then, with minimal investment, twice keeping them in the Premier League.

    The Spaniard has never sought to leave. Quite the opposite. He has forged a deep connection with the city in a manner reminiscent of his time at Liverpool, where he won the European Cup and where his family are still based. All he has pushed for is a chance, to compete with clubs in the upper half of the Premier League, if not in terms of spending, then in ambition, speed of movement, growth of infrastructure. “We must do things right,” has become his mantra.


    The club will say they have been attempting to tie Benítez down for the past 18 months with no success. They will certainly maintain that they want him to stay. Yet their initial approach came when the 59-year-old was fretting about the arrival of new players, adding to his frustration about the club’s priorities, about their approach to the transfer market, rather than soothing them. And talks since then have been haphazard.

    When Benítez met Mike Ashley and Lee Charnley, Newcastle’s managing director, in London in the week after the end of the season, there was some optimism about a compromise being reached. A one-year extension appeared the most practical solution, giving Benítez an early get-out if the club failed to deliver and giving Ashley and Charnley some breathing space and then a chance to re-negotiate.

    Progress since then has been interminable and when an offer came — one year, on the same £6 million annual wage and with none of the structural improvements Benítez had originally asked for — it did not feel like a breakthrough. Benítez is already paid a lot, but he has spent three prime years at a club allergic to its own potential and if they are not prepared to invest in other areas, surely his obsessive efforts to improve the team could be rewarded? Is that not the easy bit?

    But this is Newcastle and nothing is easy. The Sun’s front page exclusive on May 27 — “Toon £350m Sheikh-Up” — revealing that Ashley had “agreed to sell” Newcastle to Sheikh Khaled bin Zayed Al Nehayan prompted euphoria on Gallowgate. Perhaps Ashley’s 12 years of negligence, contentious decisions, two relegations, and a drip-drip of corrosion to the club’s soul was about to end. Perhaps.

    The complexities of Newcastle’s “takeover” are dense, but almost a month on from the Bin Zayed Group’s emergence, the club remains in Ashley’s hands. No exclusivity agreement has been signed and at least two other bidders, one of which is known to The Times, claim to be in the running, and at varying stages of progress. Discussions are being handled by Justin Barnes, Ashley’s Sports Direct fixer.

    Newcastle have officially been up for sale since October 2017, since when both Amanda Staveley’s PCP Capital Partners and Peter Kenyon, the former Manchester United and Chelsea director, have led attempts to buy it. It is the third time that Ashley has tried to jettison the club he bought for £135 million in 2007, although sources close to the process insist that it is different now, that his desire to sell is genuine.

    With bidders being played off against each other, with the details of moving money around, studying accounts and ticking administrative boxes dragging on, Benítez has been caught in the middle, on the one hand told by Charnley that it is business as usual this summer and on the other believing that it is anything but. He has asked for clarity and none has been forthcoming, in part because nobody really understands what will happen next.

    None of it has been authoritative and the clock is ticking down. How can he commit to something — anything — so uncertain? Could he not wait, see how things develop and, if the worst happens, hang around until sacking season this autumn and have his pick of jobs? Definitely, but he is proud and stubborn, too, and he is sick of waiting, unconvinced by what he has heard, whether from Charnley or anybody else.

    In any case, Dalian want him now. Backed by Wang Jianlin, the fourth richest man in China and worth £17.2 billion according to Forbes, they are 11th in the Super League and although Benítez has previously been dismissive about moving to the Far East, wanting to stay within touching distance of Merseyside, his wife and daughters, the landscape has changed. There are no openings in the Premier League and Newcastle are a lost cause.

    Or are they? Even now, at this late, late juncture, could the impasse not break? Could there be an end to the logjam surrounding Newcastle’s future ownership? Could Ashley not, on a whim, lavish Benítez with praise or money or possibilities? At this most impenetrable of clubs, which has offered no public comment on Benítez’s position, nothing is impossible, but time is the biggest villain of all and time is almost up.

    The next week or so may feel like forever. Benítez’s contract protects him from dismissal, to the tune of £6 million, right until the final day, but if Ashley, the retailer famed for his maverick streak, is waiting for his manager to blink first, then dismay will follow hard. It is the end game now and although this could still be the summer when Ashley finally leaves, for some overdue positivity at Newcastle, there may be a hefty price to pay. Benítez is going, going and almost gone.
    Last edited by Geordie1974; 21-06-2019 at 05:36 PM. Reason: Spelling

  7. #17
    Join Date
    May 2006
    Posts
    46,461
    It all reads as a fair assessment sadly.

    I do think he'll be gone and who can blame him.

    Devastating loss to the club.

    When he goes, i think we'll see a flurry of players pushing for moves etc. I think they are all waiting on Rafa.

  8. #18
    Join Date
    Mar 2014
    Posts
    3,862
    Rafa's last week with us (as things stand).

  9. #19
    Join Date
    Apr 2015
    Posts
    5,017
    Rumours, rumours and more rumours. This is part and parcel of being a football fan and waiting on developments on anything, whether it's a manager signing a new contract to a player signing a new contract, or moving on.

    It's so easy to hang onto media hype and best guessing when people choose to be of the same mindset as that rumour mill.
    No one knows what's going on behind the scenes other than those who really know what's going on behind the scenes.
    No media outfit has a one on one with Rafa or Ashley or Charnley that gives them any clue as to the truth of any matter that's going on with contract renewing or not. If they did, they would be stating facts.
    They may hang onto overseas rumours that indicate a foreign club is chasing Rafa and they will happily run with that if it sells their news...which.... let's be totally honest here.... it's all about selling papers and what not.

    How many times have we been told Rafa was leaving since he came to Newcastle?
    How many times have we seen interested parties ready to take over?
    How many times has Ashley ended up being the man to scupper the deals and having the fans more than happy to believe that, giving the apparent interested parties a get out of jail free card, even though they might be the one's who are trying to scrape the buying barrel whilst Ashley shouts " no joy".


    None of us really know anything other than what the feeders (media) feed us. Oh...and the occasional rumour from people with a , Oh, I know a man who knows a man who knows a man who is a good friend of a real big noise at the club and he says this and that is happening and this person is not known to make up stories, kind of thing......etc......etc.....etc.....until nothing comes of it.

    How many times have we all seen that, only for 99.9% of it to come to nothing?


    It's all good for wishes or to keep people down in the dumps if it's designed to play into the doom channel and people are obviously welcome to hang onto either, or.

    I'll just sit back and wait for some official lines from the club that rubber stamp whatever. It keeps my mind care free and ticking along just nice until that happens.

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