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Under Pressure: Benitez unsure of his future as Mourinho clash looms

Rafa Benitez is between a rock and hard place
Rafa Benitez is between a rock and hard place

There are very few managers who manage to stay at the top for longer than a decade. As the speed of change in football has accelerated, so managers who are either unable or unwilling to keep up fade from success, and sometimes from employment altogether. Rafael Benitez and Jose Mourinho are both entering a period where they can no longer claim to be the best managers available, despite their prior success. As Benitez takes on his old friend Mourinho at the weekend, he may consider this his last season to prove that he still deserves a big job.

His work since the season that he failed to topple Manchester United in 2008/9 has done little to suggest that he warrants any club taking the risk. His ability in front of the cameras has never been impressive, but his famous rant about ‘facts’ threw his player into disarray and gave Liverpool players an inkling that he was not necessarily a genius, and let United’s players and Alex Ferguson know that it was the same old playbook – keep your cool and things will fall apart.

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His time at Inter Milan was a disaster. Lasting less than a season, he alienated a Champions League winning group of heroes and Inter have not yet really recovered. The problems clearly extend beyond Benitez, as one set of dysfunctional owners have been swapped for another, but Benitez’s obsessive application – living just metres from the training ground, proved counter-productive. There is a story about Benitez that he excitedly revealed a list of statistical analysis of reserve goalkeepers to a friendly journalist, suggesting that his focus on tactics above all else sometimes a case of diminishing returns.

Rafa Benitez had a terrible time as manager of Inter and left his players confused
Rafa Benitez had a terrible time as manager of Inter and left his players confused

At Chelsea, his tenure supports the twin characteristics. The players and fans were unenthused by his presence, because of the enmity between his previous Liverpool side, and also his rivalry with the once-popular Mourinho. Nevertheless, he delivered Champions League football and the Europa League despite being only ever described as an ‘interim manager’ by his board. Following that job, there is simply nothing interesting to say about his time at Napoli.

Perhaps his spell at Real Madrid highlights how much football has changed since he gained attention at Valencia. The players openly held him in contempt, and downed tools in frustration at his tedious approach to football – he neither inspired them nor made good use of their talents.

His reputation was so damaged that he was willing to drop into The Championship and remain at Newcastle United after suffering relegation with them. He was correct in his belief that Newcastle could, with the right circumstances, establish themselves as a much more prominent and successful club, but Champions League winning managers are rarely ever forced into such a gamble.

It is a bet that has paid of to his benefit in many respects, but there are serious difficulties ahead. Most importantly, he was promoted with Newcastle at his first attempt. Failure would have flattened his career prospects. He has also excelled after being stitched up by Mike Ashley. While there is nothing inherently wrong in trusting Ashley to properly provide for Premier League survival, he has failed to do so twice before. And so it proved with Benitez, as Joselu, Javier Manquillo, Jacob Murphy, Florian Lejeune and Christian Atsu arrived.

None of these players suggested anything more than an attempt to stay up. Mikel Merino appears to be an excellent signing, but will surely only stay at Newcastle for the rest of the season unless they can demonstrate they will improve significantly.

Real Madrid players simply downed tools and refused to play for Rafa
Real Madrid players simply downed tools and refused to play for Rafa

And this is Benitez’s problem. Newcastle fans will presumably be keen to rid themselves of Ashley in favour of anyone, and Amanda Staveley presumably sees the value in buying a Premier League club and spending to keep it there, in order to secure some of the income from the next round of broadcast rights. If their sights are set on achieving regular European football, then that may not help Benitez, as he has not done such a thing since his opening stages with Liverpool.

Figures of hundreds of millions of pounds have been mentioned, which would give you the kind of side that Inter Milan had when Benitez took over and destroyed them. It is reasonable that Staveley believes that another, more modern manager would be best suited to taking her money and building a new side.

Takeover

Worse than the possibility of a takeover, though, is the possibility of no takeover. Should that happen, he conceivably fight Ashley for funds yet again. This is another bind. The better he does now, the less inclined Ashley will do in order to support their chances of staying up and succeeding. Avoiding relegation is all that the current owner will care about, and so any improvements that Benitez makes by himself will only curtail his chances to bring in better players in future.

Benitez has through his own qualities, and circumstances beyond his control, been backed into a corner, where there is no obvious success that does not come with accompanying problems. The best chance of success he may have is to learn to change from his old approach, and consider including a more modern approach to football.

Whether that is possible for him at all, let alone whether he could change mid-season, is not clear. Facing his enemy Mourinho, stuck in a similar rut, he may have to settle for the not insignificant joy of beating his rival.