OPINION
Many Newcastle United fans will love that Mick Martin can envision Rafa Benitez returning to the club if a takeover goes through.
The 67-year-old, who played 147 times for the Magpies during his career, shared he thought there was a possibility Benitez could be lured back to St James Park in the near future if a takeover occurred before the new season.
“There is one little possibility it might happen if there is a sale of this club prior to the season starting, it wouldn’t be beyond the new owners to go to Rafa Benitez if he hadn’t gotten a job by then to be honest and bring him back,” said Markin on Love Sport Radio.
“I remember reading that and thought it wasn’t a bad idea, and if there was a sale that could be possibly on.”
The Magpies announced on Monday, via their official website, that Benitez was set to leave the club when his contract expires on June 30th, and to say it wasn’t a popular announcement is an understatement.
In fact, Newcastle’s tweet on the announcement has over 7,000 replies and a fair few of them are calling the club a shambles for letting Benitez go.
This shows how loved Benitez was by the majority of Magpies supporters, and shows how loads of them will love Martin being able to envision the Spaniard returning.
Benitez was loved not just for his personality but because he was able to guide his side to positive results despite not being armed with transfer funds.
The Magpies manager won 46% of his first 96 games in charge of the club, as per managerstats.co.uk, he went on to manage over 100 games; which at the time made him the manager with the highest win percentage in the club’s history.
Benitez guided the Magpies to the Championship title and then oversaw them finishing an impressive 10th and 13th in the two Premier League seasons since.
So with that in the mind, the idea that Benitez could return, especially before the start of the 2019/20 campaign, will have many Newcastle fans buzzing even if the chances of a takeover going through in time for that scenario to develop are slim.
