Newcastle United have no contract talks scheduled with manager Rafael Benitez this week, according to The Chronicle.
The newspaper claims that as it stands on Monday morning nothing is in place at St James’ Park to try and keep the Spaniard at the club beyond when his contract expires at the end of this week.
Instead, the Chronicle’s report states that it’s unlikely that there will be any update for the supporters until after Benitez’s current deal expires on June 30.
The Magpies are refusing to budge from the contract offer they have presented to the former Liverpool boss, while Benitez is equally stubborn in his reluctance to sign said deal.
OPINION
It certainly appears as if Benitez will be leaving Newcastle when his contract expires at the end of this week. Who would have thought that this would come to fruition? Obviously this is a deal that should have been done last summer, six months ago, a month or so ago when Benitez met with Mike Ashley and Lee Charnley in London. However, nothing’s been sorted and so we are now facing a situation where the Magpies are seemingly about to lose a world class manager for absolutely nothing. That is a joke, and it’s a kick in the teeth for the supporters. You’d have thought that with just a week left to go that the Newcastle hierarchy would have been able to put their pride aside and set up some last minute talks with the manager. However, it certainly seems as if that isn’t the case at this moment in time. This is just a farcical situation and it’s the Newcastle fans who are going to suffer for it. But will Ashley care? Not one bit.
