Rafael Benítez has issued Mike Ashley with a stark warning that, without investment in the January transfer market, Newcastle United’s value will depreciate and the team could well be relegated.
Ashley appears reluctant to strengthen a side who have taken one point from their past six games at a time when he is hoping to sell the club to Amanda Staveley’s Dubai-based PCP Capital Partners, but the mooted takeover may not be completed in time for next month’s round of player trading. Should that prove the case, Benítez will urge Newcastle’s owner to speculate to accumulate.
Although the manager is encouraged by Ashley’s meeting with Staveley at an Indian restaurant in London on Wednesday night, he feels that, whoever is in charge, the arrival of new players remains imperative. “At the moment I don’t know what I’ll be able to do in January but I’m expecting that the money we weren’t spending last summer could be available,” said Benítez as he prepared for Saturday evening’s home game with Leicester City.
“At any football club in the world, the value depends on the first team; on what you’re doing on the pitch. If you’re in the Premier League and things are not going well it’s more difficult [to sell for a high price] and if you’re in the Championship it has less value. That’s so simple. You have to be sure the first team is doing well.”
In other words, Ashley needs to spend in January in order to protect his investment before a prospective takeover. “It’s very simple,” said Benítez, who has largely been forced to rely on the players he built last season’s Championship-winning side around. “You have to be sure your team is strong enough to stay in the Premier League.
“That’s been my message from the beginning of the season. The further away from relegation, the more valuable the club is. But it’s obvious that we have some positions we have to reinforce.”
The worry for Benítez is that Ashley is a high-stakes gambler who revels in risk-taking but he hopes that, should the takeover not happen imminently, the current owner will play it safe for once.
“He’s a businessman,” he said. “And a businessman will have a clear idea about what he needs to do to improve his business. He wants to win because it’s good for him, so he’ll try to do that.”
Even so, Benítez knows that without new faces Newcastle’s Premier League status could be reliant on fine margins. “We’re a team coming from the Championship and we’re in a position where every single detail can make a difference,” he said. “Maybe a goal scored or conceded from a corner in the last minute can change everything. Two points could be salvation at the end of the season. We need to improve because we didn’t do what we had to do in the summer.”