Former Premier League defender Danny Mills believes Newcastle United will attempt to get a “sexier” manager than former Magpies boss Rafa Benitez, describing him as “pragmatic”.
This comes as the Tyneside club are on the brink of being taken over by a consortium fronted by Amanda Staveley and the Reuben brothers, with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund set to take 80% take in the club.
The Spaniard was in charge of our team three seasons, managing 146 games for us while taking an average points-per-game of 1.48.
As a result of being unable to agree to a new contract, Benitez left the Magpies last summer and signed a two-and-a-half-year deal with Chinese Super League side Dalian Yifang.
Speaking to Football Insider, Mills explained why Newcastle can do better than Benitez if the takeover goes through.
Will Rafa Benitez return to St James' Park?
Yes
No
“When you look at the brand of football Benitez plays – it is not the most exciting on the planet”, he said.
“If you have new owners coming in it could be an opportunity. What is he on in China? About £25million? That is a big chunk of cash to fork out on a manager that does not play sexy football.
“Yes, he is an incredibly good manager but he is pragmatic. He will be successful but I wonder if they might want to go for somebody younger. Someone that is going to have that wow factor instantly.”
Mills went on to say that it would be a gamble bringing Benitez back and that everyone knows what to expect with the former Liverpool and Chelsea boss at the wheel.
If the takeover goes through, it would bring to an end the 13-year reign of terror from retail tycoon Mike Ashley after buying the club in 2007.
These are bizarre comments from Mills. Benitez, who brought the club back into the Premier League at the first time of asking in 2017, completely repairing the damage that was caused by Steve McLaren, in what looked like an impossible job to fix.
Even though we failed to stay up, Benitez worked miracles to turn us around and was poorly treated by the club that he kept in the Premier League by Ashley and his officials.
I’m not what sort of pedestal he thinks Newcastle United stand on, but we are about to enter a critical stage in our club’s history, and what better man to lead us into the new regime than Rafa himself.