Newcastle United manager Rafael Benitez does not have face-to-face talks scheduled with Magpies owner Mike Ashley, according to The Chronicle.
The newspaper claims that Ashley has seemingly left all aspects of Benitez’s contract negotiations to the club’s managing director Lee Charnley.
Benitez has suggested that in-person talks with the Sports Direct tycoon could become necessary if progress over a new deal continues to move slowly.
Despite the uncertainty over the manager’s future, Ashley hasn’t been seen at any of the team’s more recent home games.
OPINION
This is a depressing, but not unexpected, update on the situation surrounding Benitez’s contract talks. For most clubs, the owner would likely be involved in some capacity or another when trying to convince the best manager the team has had in years to stick around. Ashley, though, is clearly content to leave these trifling matters to his underlings. It would surely be far easier for progress to be made if Ashley and Benitez just sat down together and hashed out the important issues. They don’t need to go through all the small print, but if the two parties could come to an agreement on the major sticking points then everything else would likely fall into place. Benitez, it’s well known, wants assurances over the direction the club is moving in. Who better to speak to to find that out than the owner? However, it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen. Hopefully Charnley is up to the task of keeping Benitez on Tyneside, then.
