F365’s early loser: Newcastle, Rafa and wasted opportunities

Ian Watson

Newcastle don’t help themselves. They rarely ever have. The habit of shooting themselves in the foot is one the Magpies have never been able to break and though the smoking gun has been passed around over the years, Mike Ashley’s grubby fingerprints have been smeared all over it for the last decade.

Rafael Benitez has never bothered to hide his frustration at the conditions he is being made to work under and the 500-strong Toon Army that protested before kick-off outside one of Ashley’s stores in the city centre have taken the fight to the owner for even longer. What they saw when they made their way up the hill to watch their side take on Spurs must strengthen their resolve to keep chipping away at the retail billionaire, even if by now they feel like they are wasting their time.

Because this team that Benitez has cobbled together is a credit to their manager. They showed it over the duration of a season last year to finish in the top half and on the opening day of the new campaign, they pushed Mauricio Pochettino’s side harder than most will this term. After hitting the goal frame twice in the second half, most supporters will leave rueing what might have been – today and for the rest of the season.

Pochettino was concerned enough about this opening assignment to field his strongest team, despite many of his players having only returned to training earlier this week after playing 4816 minutes at the World Cup – more than any other Premier League side. Seven of the visitors’ XI featured in the knockout stages, with five players running through the spine of Pochettino’s side having been in active duty until the final weekend. Their three weeks off ended last weekend. Five days after returning to work, the Spurs boss felt it necessary to push his fatigued troops onto the front line.

It was a necessary gamble because, in the end, Spurs needed everything they had, and the rub of the green, to get their season off to a winning start. Eric Dier in the engine room cramped up and had to be withdrawn a few minutes before the final whistle, highlighting the toil Tottenham were made to go through.

Benitez will have watched things unfold with a familiar sense of foreboding. The manager knows he doesn’t have quite enough to achieve what he feels is achievable at St James’ Park and Saturday’s scenario will likely play itself out many more times over the course of the season ahead.

Small, sometimes tiny margins, stood between Newcastle and the point they deserved. They went behind when Jan Vertonghen’s header crossed the line by nine millimetres and though the Magpies showed their resilience to respond immediately through Joselu, Spurs quality and the hosts’ naivety showed when Serge Aurier’s sublime delivery from the right caught DeAndre Yedlin napping at the far post from where Dele Alli buried his header.

Full-back is the area Benitez is most stretched and Yedlin’s injury upon 90 minutes is likely to cause a further headache. At least Javi Maquillo is ready to step in – whether is able remains up for debate. But on the other side of his defence, the Newcastle boss has even fewer options if Paul Dummett is unavailable. The club refused to pay for any of Stanley N’Soki of PSG, Ajax’s Nicolas Tagliafico or Joe Bryan, who Aston Villa and Fulham were both willing to stump up for. Newcastle have been short in both full-back positions for at least a year, but in times of trial, Benitez has had to prioritise other areas and Yedlin’s injury highlights how close the Toon are to a crisis.

The penny-pinching leaves Benitez just short in other departments too, especially across the forward line where there remains obvious room for improvement despite the numbers being bolstered. “Doing good business in a transfer window is about ending the window clearly stronger than when you started and we believe we have done this,” said the club in a joint statement signed by Lee Charnley, Benitez and Jamaal Lascelles. That belief is surely only held by one of those signatories, and it is neither the manager nor the captain.

Instead, they will have to soldier on and continue to make the best of a needlessly bad situation. They did that against Spurs, matching the visitors for work-rate and attempts on goal, but when they needed the kind of composure and ruthlessness in attack that comes at a cost in the transfer market, it was sadly lacking.

At the start of the season, Benitez already knows that staying in the Premier League come the end is what is expected of him by his superiors. It is just yet another missed opportunity at St James’ Park because with just a little bit more investment in this manager and his squad, Newcastle could be capable of far more impressive accomplishments than simply surviving.

Ian Watson