Rafael Benítez does not know how much money, if any, he will be allowed to spend during next month’s transfer window and is pressing for clarity, preferably by the weekend.
“It’s always helpful if you have information,” said Newcastle United’s manager, whose struggling side have collected only one point from their last seven games and face a tough test against Sam Allardyce’s Everton at St James’ Park on Wednesday night. “Hopefully after Everton we’ll have good news and everybody will be happy.
“It’s important to know exactly how much we have [to spend]. I was asking Lee Charnley [the managing director] the other day and I’m waiting for an answer in a few days. We need to know.”
A sense of stasis lingers. With an apparent stalemate in takeover talks involving Mike Ashley, Newcastle’s owner, and the club’s would-be buyer, Amanda Staveley’s Dubai-based PCP Capital Partners, Benítez has been left in limbo.
Time is running out for Staveley to complete any purchase in time to fund a January shopping spree so the Spaniard is urging Ashley to reinforce his young squad with some experienced players to avert a relegation struggle and maintain Newcastle’s value.
Asked if he wanted answers before Saturday’s trip to Arsenal, Newcastle’s manager did not demur. “I would say as soon as possible,” he said. “We have scouts travelling the world looking at targets, we’re monitoring people and talking to players, but you need to know your budget. We know what we need. Can we get it? I don’t know.
“It’s easier if you know where you are and can go in one direction or another. We need to know as soon as possible. It’s easier if you can talk with agents, clubs and players and say ‘we can’ or ‘we can’t’. It’s easy to see we need players in some positions. Whether we can get them, we’ll have to see.”
There was a time when meetings of teams managed by Benítez and Allardyce involved considerable pre-match sniping but those days appear over. Indeed concerns regarding the takeover, budgets and staying in the Premier League are so great on Tyneside that Allardyce’s history managing Newcastle a decade ago and, more recently, coaching their detested rivals Sunderland, has been all but forgotten.
“We don’t play against managers,” said Benítez “We just have to be sure we beat his team.”