Rafa Benitez needs bigger miracle than Istanbul as Newcastle stare into abyss

Even an expert in escapology has known few more perilous positions. Three goals down in a Champions League final, Rafa Benitez still found a way to engineer a route to glory. With one game to go in his salvage mission at Newcastle, finding a path to safety seems even more improbable.

As he trudged along the touchline after a 0-0 draw with an Aston Villa side who had not avoided defeat for three months, who are suffering the worst season in their 142-year history and one of the most ignominious ever in the Premier League, Benitez looked impassive. He often does. A methodical man wiped the Birmingham rain off his glasses and placed them in a case in his pocket. He is a creature of habit, Newcastle a club of chaos. Their marriage of convenience may only have one more game to run.

Should Newcastle go down, Benitez could activate the get-out clause in his contract. A European champion may not fancy managing a club whose peers include Rotherham United, not Manchester United. This, as Newcastle tumbled into the relegation zone, was a dreadful day. Under other circumstances, they could savour a five-game unbeaten run, their best since 2014. In the current context, this was both a wretched result and a drab display. “We didn’t play well,” he said. The broader picture is that Benitez has instigated a revival. The problem is that it came too late.

Had Newcastle sacked the hapless Steve McClaren even a month earlier, Benitez might have piloted them to safer ground. Instead, they must beat Tottenham and hope Sunderland secure at most one point against the out-of-form duo of Everton and Watford. The former Liverpool manager once derided Merseyside’s other representatives as a “small club”. He requires a big performance from them to halt Sunderland’s surge. “It depends on them,” he conceded. A pragmatic took a realistic assessment of Newcastle’s situation. “It is bad,” he admitted. They may be relegated on Wednesday, without even playing, depending upon the result at the Stadium of Light.

Benitez’s great gamble was that he could keep Newcastle up, then giving him a platform for progress. It depended on those initial 10 games. He has 10 points now, and the probability is that even another three will not suffice. Relegated with Extremadura in 1999, he is set to suffer a second demotion. His has been a season of extremes, hired and fired by Real Madrid, the club he supported as a boy, seeing one of his employers this campaign bound for the Champions League final and the other headed for the Championship.

Hopes were altogether higher when Benitez was serenaded to the tune of “La Bamba” at the start. He has had a transformative effect at Newcastle, giving a shambolic side a system and a structure. He has brought order but this was an occasion when they needed a little anarchy.

His early experiments, such as fielding Georginio Wijnaldum and Jonjo Shelvey in deep-lying roles, have been abandoned in favour of something more recognisably Rafa-esque. Newcastle have acquitted the traits of many a Benitez team, compact and organised with a two-man shield in front of the defence. Shoring a side up is often a new manager’s initial aim, but twin anchormen become superfluous against Villa in a must-win game. Newcastle were too cautious.

Villa had conceded 21 goals in their previous six home matches. They mustered a clean sheet, even with two of their three centre-backs, Joleon Lescott and Leandro Bacuna, being heartily booed by the home faithful. Newcastle needed invention, incision, inspiration. They had none.

They barely had a shot before the break. After it, Jack Colback and Aleksandar Mitrovic were guilty of glaring misses. “We were much better,” said Benitez. He cajoled and reconfigured, removing first one and then both of his holding midfielders and sending on Mitrovic, Ayoze Perez and Siem de Jong. None made the decisive impact. And so Benitez, perhaps interim manager and certainly a micro-manager, is the control freak who now finds events spiralled out of his control as the drama occurred elsewhere.

The biggest roar of the first half greeted the news that Diego Costa had scored for Chelsea against Sunderland. The Villa supporters took a similar pleasure in Wahbi Khazri’s equaliser for Newcastle’s neighbours, still more when they heard Jermain Defoe had scored what proved the decider for Sam Allardyce’s side. A Tyne-Wear rivalry is embedded, one between Newcastle and Villa an odder, and more modern, phenomenon. Villa took pleasure in relegating Newcastle in 2009 – Alan Shearer’s presence in the dugout adding to the sense of Schadenfreude – and their only consolation in this sorriest of seasons is that they seem to have done it again.

“We knew we were relegated for some time,” said caretaker-manager Eric Black. Their fate has been apparent for so long fans had months to protest. This time they could turn their attention to their visitors. They are likely to reconvene next season, in a different division and very probably without either Black or Benitez.

Because the question on the placards Villa fans have been waving for weeks – “proud history, what future?” – could apply to Newcastle now. They are staring into the abyss.