Newcastle manager Rafa Benitez has explained the reason behind why he is such a vociferous note taker during and after the side’s matches.
The Spaniard told the Shields Gazette that all his notes are fed back into software which then analyses the data and suggest areas of strength and weakness in the team. This information is then used to plan training sessions for the weeks and months ahead:
“We have a lot of information and we try to manage this information to put the strongest team on the pitch. We’re not improvising.. We also have our software – after every game you will see me taking notes, well it goes into the software.”
“It’s about the strengths and weaknesses of the team in those games and we can return to it after 10 games and revisit it. We start working on that. After maybe ten games he will say ‘We need to improve the counter attack’ so we put on more sessions on that. But we don’t change after every game, we work in the longer term. The idea is that little-by-little we are improving things as we go along.”
Benitez’s attention to detail has always been widely known. Former Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard has repeatedly cited the Spaniard as having the most influence over him in terms of the tactical side of the game.
This has also been reflected by comments coming out of the Newcastle dressing room in recent months with players such as Matt Ritchie saying that have learned so much from the Magpies boss just in the space of a couple of months of being at the club.
