Newcastle United boss Rafa Benitez has hit back at the pundits who criticised his comments about the club’s recruitment.
The Spaniard has come under fire from pundits Richard Keys and Andy Gray, who criticised the way he spoke about United’s summer recruitment drive recently.
He was quoted by the Chronicle as saying: ““I’ve said that the squad is a little bit better. People need to read my quotes properly. We were bringing in players to improve the squad overall and it depends on the new additions if they can improve the starters.
“If they can do that we have a better team. The problem we have here is that all the other teams are improving. So we will see where we are.”
The Toon boss suffered a 2-1 defeat at the hands of Tottenham yesterday in United’s season opener.
OPINION
Rafa Benitez certainly does not deserve the criticism he has been getting from these pundits. If anything, they should be praising him at the way he has managed to bring in some quality signings on such little money. This indicates their lack of understanding of what is actually going on at Newcastle, which is rather worrying. To come under fire is not fair on Benitez, who has a hard enough job as it is to contend with – and criticising his comments on the club’s recruitment is not on. He was right to hit back at them, and it is only right he cleared the air. Mike Ashley is the one who should be coming under fire with his treatment of the club, the players and Benitez – but instead he avoids any sort of criticism from these pundits. Benitez just needs to focus on what he is good at – his man management skills and achieving a decent finish in the league.
