Rafael Benítez has changed his mind about how best to change his players’ minds. After last week’s defeat at Norwich, the Spaniard said he would resist making many alterations at Newcastle because his under-pressure players might get confused. After this anaemic defeat he said major transformation was essential if Newcastle are to win enough of their six remaining matches to avoid relegation.
“We have to start winning soon and change a lot of things: the commitment, the passion, the character, the way that we play,” said Benítez, before pleading with supporters to suppress any urge to turn against this underperforming team. “The fans will be crucial for us because we need them pushing and supporting the players. And at the end of the season we will have time to analyse what was going on. But now is the time to stick together and do our best because that is the only way.”
Questioning players’ commitment and character while asking fans to stay behind them seems oxymoronic, so it is a good thing that Benítez added that he meant his players are sloppy and hesitant because they are nervous, not, apparently, because they are feckless. “When you are at the bottom of the table and making mistakes, it’s more difficult,” he said. “Some of the players are young and need help in terms of making the right decisions. So you have to give them this help in training and maybe the senior players, the ones with more experience, they can help. But it’s something that we have to change quickly. I won’t point fingers; the team is a team. We are training really hard. You can see the intensity in training sessions and they are really focused and they listen to you and try to do things. Then you start a game with an idea but after three minutes, everything changes. That is something we have to check.”
Once Shane Long took advantage of dazed defending to put Southampton in front in the fourth minute, an easy home victory looked inevitable. Graziano Pellè and Victor Wanyama helped themselves to goals, too, before Andros Townsend registered a token of resistance for the visitors. Ronald Koeman explained afterwards that he knew Newcastle would be nervous so deployed four strikers and instructed his Southampton team to tear into them from the start. Newcastle’s six remaining opponents will be similarly aware of that vulnerability.
Benítez hopes his team will gain strength from the fact that four of their remaining games are at home. Newcastle have won only four home matches all season but that is still better than their diabolical away record, so counts as a straw to which Benítez can cling. He says that if his team beat Swansea next week, then they will gain belief that they can do likewise to the next three visitors: Manchester City, Crystal Palace and Tottenham Hotspur.
“We have to start by winning the first one,” he said. “If you see the team fighting like they did in the second halves against Sunderland, Norwich and Southampton, and we score a goal and get the three points that are crucial for us, then we’ll have more belief and confidence and the players will realise that we can do it. But at the moment any single individual mistake is killing the team mentally. So we have to be sure for the next one that we will not make mistakes at the beginning and hopefully we will get chances and if we can score, it will be different.”
He admitted players find it difficult to share his optimism. “Some of them know that we can do it but some of them are worried about these mistakes that we normally do during the games,” he said. “The only way is to try and repeat the situations during the training sessions, then we’ll have more confidence. Then they can replicate the situations during the games. Do we have enough time? We will see. We do not have to be the best team in the Premier League, we have to be the best in the bottom four.”
Man of match Graziano Pellè (Southampton)
