There is a growing list of people wanting the Newcastle United job following the announcement that Rafa Benitez will be leaving his St James’ Park hot seat on Sunday.
The Toon Army faithful haven’t been shy in expressing their views and anger towards Mike Ashley ever since it was announced that Rafa Benitez will part ways with Newcastle United when his contract expires.
Whilst the supporters express their anger and disgust at the controversial owner once again, he and his people will now be tasked with appointing a successor – one name that has cropped up has been Claudio Ranieri’s.
Sky Sports reported on their official Twitter account that Ranieri, whose last club in England was Fulham, has expressed interest in replacing Benitez.
The 67-year-old’s recent comments about Newcastle and Benitez should make for interesting reading. He dubbed the Spaniard as a ‘very intelligent’ manager, and more hilariously, ‘more Italian’ than him.
Added with that, he agreed that it’s a ‘bad thing’ when there’s ‘nobody’ at St James’ Park as he referenced the ‘very, very warm’ Magpies faithful and their troubles.
“I saw him a long time ago in Valencia, he’s a great manager who has won a lot, he is very intelligent, tactically is very attentive, and he’s created a very good group there,” said Ranieri, as quoted by the Chronicle. “The team is strong, very intensive, tight – I think Rafa is more Italian than me
“That’s because he’s very, very attentive on the tactical movement of the players. The Newcastle fans are very, very warm. But the players love to play against teams that have very good fans. It’s a bad thing when there is nobody at the stadium.”
Ranieri has the experience in the game, but his name wouldn’t be right at the top of Newcastle’ fans’ wishlist.
Managerial appointments are all about timing. When Ranieri won the Premier League title with Leicester City, and was then sacked by the club the season after, if the Newcastle job had become available then there would have been more fans in favour of appointing the Italian.
But since then, he hasn’t set the world alight and the modern thing to do in football now is to appoint a young manager who wants to play out from the back – unfortunately for Ranieri, he no longer fits that bracket.
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