Authority and control have been two commodities in horribly short supply at Newcastle United this season but Rafa Benítez promises to provide some much needed corrective therapy.
If Monday night’s game at Leicester City may come too early for the Spaniard’s new charges to take command on the pitch, power has already been restored to the manager’s office. And if Steve McClaren was, in far too many ways, a puppet of a rigid club hierarchy overseen by Mike Ashley, the owner, the former England coach’s successor has already made it subtly clear that he intends to be the man doing the dictating.
Benítez is most definitely not the type to be dominated by Lee Charnley, Newcastle’s managing director, and Graham Carr, the chief scout. McClaren, sacked on Friday morning, was handed certain players he did not want – most notably Florian Thauvin and Aleksandar Mitrovic, by Carr. Equally damagingly, the former England coach was not supplied with the left-back, a proven goalscorer and high-calibre centre-half he needed.
It is hard to envisage the former Liverpool, Chelsea and Real Madrid manager putting up with anything similar. “I haven’t spoken to him [Carr] yet but I know him,” said Benítez during his unveiling in a packed St James’ Park media room on Saturday afternoon. “I don’t see any problem. He’s a football man, we’ll talk about football, we’ll talk about players and I think we’ll be fine. I understand why the club is going in this direction but I have to explain why we have to change a little bit. I think that will be good for everyone.
“They [the board] will try to bring the best players for me. If I’m here it is because they trust me, they want to listen to me, they want to improve and want to do things in a certain way.”
Benítez has found an ally in Alan Shearer, the former Newcastle striker, captain and, briefly, manager. “Alan Shearer loves the club,” he said. “He told me: ‘If you do well it will be amazing. If you need me or want to know anything, about the city, the fans, everything, you can always ask.’ He was great, he was really good.”
The pair have arranged to meet for further discussions over a lunch in which any flies on the wall are surely in for a most informative time. Shearer’s views on Fabricio Coloccini, Newcastle’s Argentinian captain and a figure who appeared to undermine McClaren, should certainly be intriguing.
Coloccini is currently recovering from injury, dictating that Jonjo Shelvey, a £12m January buy from Swansea and the last player Benítez purchased (from Charlton) as Liverpool manager, will almost certainly wear the armband at the King Power Stadium.
Significantly, McClaren’s successor – who likes and admires his Leicester counterpart, Claudio Ranieri – has made an immediate point of singling out the dressing room’s two obvious leaders for priority chats. “I’ve been talking with Shelvey, Coloccini,” Benítez said. “We had some meetings together, talking about tactics and other things.
“I have individual conversations, face-to-face, with some players. Coloccini was one. On Saturday we had a tactical training session. We were doing some movements I would like to do in the future so he came outside to see what we were doing and I was talking with him. He was really confident the team is good and will do well.”
Nonetheless, it must represent quite a culture shock to a man who so recently coached Cristiano Ronaldo and Gareth Bale in Madrid to suddenly find himself choreographing Emmanuel Rivière, Gabriel Obertan and company.
Accordingly someone suggested that, this time last year, Benítez might have been somewhat underwhelmed by the prospect of managing Newcastle. “If I am like I am now, convinced, I would be delighted, why not?” he replied.
“I am someone that analyses things in a certain way. The Premier League teams are so big and they will be even bigger. So when you see a team like Newcastle, with all the potential, you say: ‘We can improve things, we can be very big.’ I am convinced I can do it. But I need to concentrate on the next 10 games. I think we’re one of the most important teams in the Premier League but we have to stay in the Premier League.”
This task is complicated by the double-edged nature of Newcastle’s problems. “We have to improve both parts of our game in attack and also in defence,” said Benítez. “We have to do both things at the same time.”