Newcastle United manager Rafael Benitez is expected meet with several key Magpies decision-makers this weekend, according to The Chronicle.
The newspaper claims that the Spaniard will likely sit down with managing director Lee Charnley, head of recruitment Steve Nickson, European scout Paul Baker and senior scout Mick Tait.
The Newcastle power brokers are set for a crunch meeting to discuss transfer plans ahead of the next window, and there are certain to be hints during the meeting about whether Benitez plans to remain on Tyneside beyond his current contract.
This meeting has been in the diary for some time as one of the regular scouting meetings held by the club, with the get-together to be held at St James’ Park and the training ground this weekend.
OPINION
Although this meeting has been in the works for a while, it’s highly unlikely that Benitez would bother attending if he was seriously going to leave the club at the end of the season. In that case he would have just let the other four men get on with organising their strategy for whoever the next Newcastle manager is. However, Benitez is scheduled to attend and this serves as another hint that he intends to remain at St James’ Park moving forward. That in and of itself is tremendous news, you just hope that no contentious issues arise at this meeting. It’s well known that Benitez has been dissatisfied with the amount of money he’s had to spend in the past, and so if he comes away from this weekend’s meeting with more questions than answers then he might think twice about his desire to remain at the club. That’s the only potential negative here, everything else about this news is hugely positive for Newcastle.
