VIDEO: Kevin Keegan’s Ashley rant emerges – a scary look into Rafa Benitez’s reality at NUFC

I was scrolling through Twitter and stumbled across on old clip Kevin Keegan’s famous rant at Mike Ashley back in 2010.

After watching him deliver a few home truths about the NUFC owner, it struck me that absolutely nothing has changed, with his words now reflecting the EXACT same struggles Rafa Benitez is now facing today at Newcastle United.

‘There’s no trust there’, ‘you can’t work with these people’, ‘from day one they’ve been mislead’, ‘they tell you one thing, they mean another’. I wonder how many of these Benitez would agree with based on his experience with Ashley? All of them I should think.

Here’s what the former Newcastle United boss had to say when asked why there’s so much negativity towards Ashley during his famous appearance on ESPN back in 2010:

“Because there’s no trust there.

“There’s no trust there because from day one they’ve been misled.

“Having worked with Mike Ashley and Derek Llambias – you just can’t work with these people.”

“You can’t trust them,” 

“They tell you one thing, they mean another.

“I had a phone call for about an hour to buy a player. After I went off the phone, they [the board] had another conference call together and said ‘right, we don’t want to offer £2m, we offer £1m’, they’ll reject it and that’s it.”

It’s interesting that he claimed there was non-footballing people making footballing decisions at the top end of the club, calling for Ashley to bring in ‘footballing people’ who can be ‘trusted’ to get on with their job.

Why? Because after years of yes men (Pardew, McClaren), we finally had that footballing man who was ready to be trusted in Rafa Benitez.

A few years on and the same mistakes are being made. The same power struggle exists. The same lack of trust between manager and owner is present. Benitez is constantly undermined, mislead and mistreated – all while the club ask him to sign a new contract!

Benitez was promised ‘every penny’ generated by the club this summer, yet here we are with 9 days of the window to go with a net spend of -£25m, with Rafa told he can’t sign a certain Argentinian left-back because an £8m fee would eat too much into his ‘limited budget’.

We don’t ask for the world, and I don’t think  Rafa does either,  but you clearly can’t trust Mike Ashley – and you certainly can’t second guess him.

Keegan’s comments eight years ago still ring true today and I imagine Rafa can relate to so many of what he says in the clip above.

A sad state of affairs, but it seems King Kev was right about Ashley all the long.

  (Fancy writing for us? Send any articles/ideas over to us at [email protected] & we’ll get back to you!)

About Olly Hawkins

As a Junior Magpie since birth and season ticket holder, I eat, sleep and breathe all things NUFC! Here at the blog, I aim to bring you news, views, match reports and transfer exclusives as and when I get them.

5 thoughts on “VIDEO: Kevin Keegan’s Ashley rant emerges – a scary look into Rafa Benitez’s reality at NUFC

  1. The Magpie Group have sent our portly owner an open letter, explaining that all the various groups are joining together because ‘enough is enough’. I assume it’ll be passed on to various media, but it looks like maybe we’re seeing solidarity in doing something about him. 😀
    I think the increased season ticket prices, the ‘coded’ communications from our owner and his squad, along with the joke of a transfer window yet again, have finally done it.
    I bet I’m not the only one who actually thought, along the lines of an article by Niall and Biffa, that going from beating Chelsea to finish 10th to this would be sabotage, so muggings paid 628 pounds for a season ticket, believing he would actually be reasonable, back the manager and spend some of our PL money. I wish I could get a refund, but it will be the last! 😡

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  2. This is not news, we are all aware of how Ashley works , the fact he was willing to let Benitez manage the Spanish world cup side was just another way of making the club look better for any prospective buyer, and i believe he wants out of the club as soon as possible.
    It’s very obvious we are in the EPL, have a decent manager, he ain’t gonna a spend one thin dime and will recoup every cent he paid for the club, let him go
    The club will obviously take time to recover from over ten years of neglect
    and miss -management , but it will be worth it just to see him go!

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  3. And yet 8 years later thousands still pay for season tickets, turn up to games and shop at SD.

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  4. Simple,
    How many more people do you need to hear it from?

    Right in front of our eyes every season and still nothing done,

    Enjoy our season? Lmao , sad soooo sad

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