Fans are worried that Benitez could leave Newcastle after another frustrating window.
Newcastle United winger Matt Ritchie has told TalkSPORT that Rafa Benitez is happy at St. James’ Park despite a tumultuous summer that is likely to have left the Spaniard frustrated once again.
Benitez is likely to have grown annoyed at Mike Ashley’s lack of backing this summer, as he failed to bring in a number o key targets and was forced to do deals on the cheap.
Indeed, Benitez had to sell before he could buy – cashing in on the likes of Aleksandar Mitrovic, Chancel Mbemba, Matz Sels and Mikel Merino which gave him the money to bring in seven new players.
Yoshinori Muto, Federico Fernandez, Ki Sung-yueng, Martin Dubravka, Salomon Rondon, Fabian Schar and Kenedy have all joined, and Ritchie claimed that Benitez is happy at Newcastle.
“I’d say so, yes, absolutely,” Ritchie said, when asked if Benitez was happy.
“In training he is very upbeat. One of his best qualities is he’s never too high and never too low, and I think that’s really important for a team like us, because we’re not going to win every game, we move onto the next one and try and improve.”
“There is absolutely harmony within the club, for sure. We had a really good pre-season, although we didn’t have really good results, we got a lot of minutes in our legs.”
Newcastle were unlucky to lose to Tottenham Hotspur on home soil last weekend, suffering a 2-1 loss with goals from Jan Vertonghen and Dele Alli coming either side of Joselu’s header.
Benitez will be hoping his side can put things right on Saturday when they travel to Wales to face newly-promoted Cardiff City, who are many fans’ favourites to be relegated come May next year.
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