Rafa Benitez is an ambitious manager and the Toon Army is an ambitious fan base, but ahead of Newcastle United’s return to the Premier League, whether that proves to be beneficial or detrimental remains to be seen.
No question, most clubs around the world would kill to have a following as passionate as Newcastle’s, but that passion works both ways; the atmosphere at St. James’ Park can quickly turn when performances lack excitement and the club always feels like it’s swinging between irresistible highs and unprecedented lows.
To survive in an increasingly competitive Premier League next season, level-headedness and realism is needed. It’s essential to walk before you can run in the top flight and although Newcastle have plenty of experience of being there, setting targets too high can see a campaign implode spectacularly.
If even the reigning champions can finish the following campaign in tenth place, as Chelsea did two years ago, there are certainly no guarantees Newcastle will be clear of the relegation battle next season. Nonetheless, when we asked Magpies fans to predict how their club would fare next term, the majority said between 15th and 10th, whereas only five percent predicted lower.
Keeping ambitions in check should be one of the key jobs of the manager, especially at a club as idiosyncratic as Newcastle. That doesn’t mean prophesising a relegation scrap on the first day of the season as David Moyes did at Sunderland last term, but it does mean not raising expectations unnecessarily. So far this summer, however, Benitez has only played to the fan base’s ambitions, its apathy towards Mike Ashley and his own popularity as weapons in his ongoing power struggle at the Tyneside club.
“I’ve confirmed to Rafa and Lee that they can have every last penny that the club generates through promotion, player sales and other means in order to build for next season.”
Mike Ashley on Newcastle’s summer spending
Indeed, the summer transfer window hasn’t even opened yet and Benitez has already thrown his toys out of the pram twice. After Newcastle’s promotion from the Championship, he refused to confirm he’d still be in charge next season until Ashley promised a budget of up to £100million and despite the club parting with Graham Carr to increase Benitez’s autonomy over signings, reports last weekend claimed the Spaniard had grown frustrated with the Magpies’ transfer policy for the second time in a matter of weeks after missing out on Tammy Abraham and Newcastle ‘dragging their heels’ over a deal for Florian Lejeune.
Some Newcastle fans will view the situation as typical Ashley, reluctant to spend despite promises otherwise because he knows the profit the club – and more importantly, he – would make from simply making up the numbers in the Premier League next season.
That perception may well have some truth in it, but the idea that Newcastle need to spend £100million this summer is outlandish enough, let alone Benitez losing patience with the club over a failed loan signing and a decent if unspectacular Eibar defender before the transfer window is even open.
It all further amplifies the illusion that Newcastle should be aiming unusually high next season for a club that has just been promoted from the Championship, something which the fan base already appears to believe. But once again, that’s not the reality of the situation; whether you’re Macclesfield or Manchester United, top fight survival after gaining promotion is always a good season.
To expect anything more is somewhere between naively idealistic and setting up for your own fall, and it’s quickly been forgotten that Newcastle didn’t exactly blow the Championship away last season, as much as they kept the rest of the division at a safe distance with a cool and consistent breeze.
Can this current squad really be expected to push for a 10th-place finish next term, even if Benitez does get to spend £100million? If the likes of Southampton, West Ham and West Brom are the benchmark, Newcastle are a long way off in terms of experience and quality.
Furthermore, Ashley has already made huge allowances by his own standards, excepting a quiet January transfer window – something which the Magpies’ champions’ status eventually justified – starting with a £50million spend last summer.
On average, over the last six seasons, survival has cost around £35million. Even doubling that sum, taking the Premier League’s new TV deal and consequential unprecedented spending into account, Benitez could end up spending £30million more ahead of 2017/18. Accordingly, that will only add to the fan base’s expectations of something more than a survival bid, as will Benitez’s protests about a lack of action thus far.
But at this point in Newcastle’s history, when the club will have to re-establish itself as a top-flight side, that feels incredibly irresponsible. Even with four games to go last season none of the top ten were mathematically clear of the relegation zone, which firstly shows how competitive the Premier League now is and secondly how being in a relegation battle can be as much perception as points on the board – some clubs will naturally assume they’ll pull away with a few games to spare, others will begin to fear the worst.
And thus, if Newcastle aren’t a safe distance away post-Christmas, you can already imagine the St. James’ Park crowd beginning to turn and fans asking why their club is in a relegation battle as frustration and fears of history repeating itself set in.
That expectation, that perception, that frustration and the subsequent pressure will be as much Benitez’s fault as anybody else for the way he’s behaved this summer, playing up to fans’ ambitions for political gain instead of going about his business quietly. Pressure on a team that has just come up from the Championship is never a good thing – and it certainly won’t be on new boys Brighton and Huddersfield in the same way.
It’s starting to feel like Benitez is holding the club to ransom because he’s a proven manager with huge popularity amongst the fans, in the same way Harry Redknapp often did at Tottenham. He constantly talked about a desire to make it into the top four in a bid to squeeze the funds to do so from Daniel Levy.
But whilst he managed it once and cost the Lilywhites a small fortune in transfer fees and wages in the process, often on largely average players, Mauricio Pochettino has done it twice in consecutive seasons, putting up a serious title challenge in both, predominantly using the resources that were already at his disposal. Just because Benitez is making big demands doesn’t necessarily mean they’re the right demands to make.
There are two sides to every argument and whilst Benitez may believe his actions are an effort to accelerate the evolution of a club that has the potential to be one of the Premier League’s major forces, they could also prove to be incredibly undermining for himself, for his players and the Magpies over the course of what looks set to be an incredibly tough 2017/18.
Benitez should be managing expectations, not using them as leverage ahead of a season in which, realistically, anything more than survival is a bonus.