Ben Guest
Jamie Carragher has said that Newcastle should stick by manager Rafael Benitez, despite the Magpies’ horrendous start to the Premier League season.
Newcastle have had a miserable start to the season, picking up a meagre two points from their opening nine Premier League games to leave them rock bottom of the table.
While they have been handed one of the hardest starts to the season possible, facing five of last season’s top six already, there were hopes that they would start picking up points now that their fixture list has started to get a little easier.
Most of the blame surrounding the problems at the club has been pointed at controversial owner Mike Ashley, and his lack of investment, however, this weekend’s 1-0 defeat to Brighton have seen some start to question manager Rafa Benitez.
Having worked with the Spaniard during his time at Liverpool though, Jamie Carragher has said that it isn’t time to hit the panic button just yet, and the club should stick with the Benitez.
“It’s not time to make a change,” Carragher told Sky Sports MNF.
“You’re not calm because of those fixtures, though. They’ve had four (winnable games) and done nothing in them. The big thing they have is a manager who, one of his biggest strengths – especially when he was managing Liverpool, is calmness. Sometimes he’s criticised for that. When he’s doing well he doesn’t show emotion, he doesn’t celebrate goals, that kind of thing.
“But on the flipside of that it helps when he’s in this position. Every manager in that position – even managers who bring a club up, say Neil Warnock, or the Fulham manager – they will be under pressure. So Rafa Benitez will be under pressure, of course he will.
“But the talk of Mike Ashley making a change – I saw Brendan Rodgers got linked with the job last week before the Brighton job – well this is a manager who was there last season, knows the Premier League well, knows the squad well and has that calmness under pressure.
“I still believe there will be three worse teams than Newcastle. Rafa’s said that in the press today – hopefully there are three worse teams than us – I think there’ll stay up. Because of the manager and the quality they have.”