The Warm-Up: Mike Ashley even has Ant AND Dec against him
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Updated 25/06/2019 at 14:38 GMT
These truly are grim times at Newcastle, while the USA sneak their way through to the World Cup quarter-finals.
Mike Ashley continues to face criticism
Image credit: PA Sport
TUESDAY’S BIG STORIES
Benitez to leave Newcastle, not that they told him about it
It’s probably a fool’s errand to try ranking the various ways in which the current Newcastle regime have been awful and the mistakes they’ve made. But allowing Rafa Benitez – the best and most loved manager since the last best and most loved manager they drove away – to walk away, for want of promising to run things like an actual, functioning Premier League football club, is right up there with the worst.
This had been coming. It was inevitable that the relationship between the hawkers of cheap shorts and giant mugs masquerading as football club owners and a manager that was far too good for them, would break down eventually. It was in a constant state of breaking down, in fact, like an eroding cliff, bits falling off into the sea before it all came tumbling down on Monday.
The real kicker is that they apparently didn’t think to inform Benitez that his time at St James’s Park was coming to an end, and he found out that they had announced the departure when a friend who was watching Sky Sports News called him.
So what now for Newcastle? Who’s the coach that Newcastle think they can magically produce from somewhere who’s better than Benitez? Well, word is Avram Grant is among their favoured replacements for him. Also Garry Monk, recently sacked by Birmingham because of his disagreements with the club hierarchy.
What a mess.
VAR has its fun again as USA sneak through
The USA are the favourites for this World Cup and probably the best team, but they’re pretty lucky to be in the quarter-finals after beating Spain on Monday thanks to a couple of Megan Rapinoe penalties.
Which, naturally, only tells half the story: one thing you patronisingly hear about the women’s game is that there’s no diving, faking, ‘making the most of’ fouls and rolling around on the floor trying to con/persuade the referee. Anyone who watched this game will tell you that’s a nonsense, as at best the USA’s two spot-kicks only came about due to – shall we say – their players ’emphasising’ fouls against them in the penalty area.
Tobin Heath and Rose Lavelle were the foulees in question, and while the former award was a little more convcing with the latter, which was double-checked by VAR and still given despite minimal evidence of contact, neither were convincing.
Still, Rapinoe had the ice cool will to stick both penalties away, because that’s broadly what she does, and they’re through. Just about. But you wonder how their performances will play later on in the tournament, when they don’t have generous refereeing to give them a hand.
England end their U21 Euros campaign in suitable fashion
Remember when England’s youth teams were the undoubted princes of the world and they showed a bright future for the nation’s teams? Not so much now, on the basis of the last couple of weeks. What an entire shambles this Under-21s European Championships has been for England, who rounded off their campaign – already eliminated, of course – by losing the lead three times against Croatia.
At least Aidy Boothroyd picked his best team, the policy of leaving out Phil Foden for the game England actually needed to win paying off handsomely here as he skipped around merrily and with great energy in this meaningless fixture. England went ahead through a Reiss Nelson penalty, James Maddison and Jonjoe Kenny, only to be pegged back all three times and they shuffle home with just this point to their name. Boothroyd said:
It’s the story of the tournament for us really – wonderful attacking play but basic, fundamental defensive errors with poor passes and decisions. At least we are getting one part of the game right but, with this team, conceding goals has undone us. There is obviously a concentration issue but it’s been different players who have been doing it, not just one guy over and over again. When we go through it all there will be plenty to learn. The main thing is that you stay in the game mentally, you score a goal and instead of relaxing you need to treble your efforts. That is all over the pitch. When you look at the calibre of players who are making the mistakes it doesn’t make sense. There will be reasons and we will get to the bottom of them with a new team next time around.
In theory it’s a bold assumption to think he’ll be the man to get to the bottom of those mistakes, but this is how the FA works. The chances are that Boothroyd will be waved along, nothing to see here, and things will just continue as they were. Good. Should be fine. No problem at all.
HEROES AND ZEROS
Hero: Luis Suarez
Obviously Luis Suarez isn’t a hero, for many reasons. But you have to have some sort of grudging admiration for a man with the chutzpah to do this.
Zero: Mike Ashley
Look, Mike, you’ve got Ant AND Dec against you. Time to go my friend, time to go.
RETRO CORNER
On this day in 1978, Argentina beat the Netherlands in the World Cup final, in a game that very nearly didn’t happen, because of a plaster cast.
HAT TIP
The sadness is that Newcastle had something profound in their grip. Take a step back and it still feels improbable that Rafa Benítez — Rafa Benítez! — the hero of Istanbul, last seen in charge of Real Madrid, should agree to manage a struggling club games away from tumbling into the Sky Bet Championship. They recognised his pedigree and brought him to Tyneside and yet, when it really mattered, they failed to comprehend what Benitez meant. It meant better; better than this.
Admittedly behind the Times paywall, but if you want anyone to make clear what a mess Newcastle are, it’s George Caulkin.
COMING UP
The relentless march of football continues: to sate those of you who can’t get through a summer without getting your fix, we have the last set of Women’s World Cup round of 16 games, as Italy face China and the Netherlands play Japan. In the Africa Cup of Nations, it’s Cameroon vs Guinea-Bissau and Ghana against Benin, while later in the Copa America Jamaica duke it out with Curacao and Honduras are up against El Salvador.
Tomorrow’s Warm-Up, with a detailed plan about how Newcastle will get themselves out of this mess, will be brought to you by Ben Snowball.
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