Yesterday, in their final pre-season friendly, before the big Premier League kick-off next weekend, Newcastle United suffered another defeat, this time against the German side Augsburg.
However, despite slipping to yet another pre-season defeat, Newcastle were the better side for long periods of the game at St James Park but were beaten when a header, just past the hour mark, from Michael Gregoritsch, beat Karl Darlow.
With the opening fixture, next weekend, seeing Tottenham Hotspur provide Newcastle’s first opponents, at St James Park, the supporters will be hoping that, before the transfer window slams shut at midnight on Thursday, Rafael Benitez can bring in a few new faces.
However, as we’ve come to recognise in recent years, big summer signings are not Newcastle’s forte.
Talking to the media after the game yesterday, and as reported by Sky Sports, Rafael cut something of a forlorn figure, remarking,
“I have a lot of confidence in this group of players but they (the club) know we have to do something if we want to improve the competition between players.
“If you are asking me if it is ideal, I would say no, because the way that I like to work is doing things early. But we can’t do that at the moment. It’s just trying to improve as much as we can.”
But, aside from those comments above, Rafael also showed just how frustrating it can be being the Newcastle manager when he spoke about the club just looking to survive every year, now that, in our opinion sums things up perfectly.
A club of our size and with our tradition should be reaching out for success, not, as we appear to be these days, just going through the motions.
Will things change before Thursday’s transfer window deadline, not a chance I’d say!