Tag: football

Napoli boss Rafa Benitez has been under intense pressure at the start of the season after his failure to get the club into the Champions League for the first time in a few years. The team failed to the last hurdle in the qualifying stage. Even though it is well acknowledged that Napoli had a tough draw, many expected them to reach the stages of the prestigious European tournament. It would have given them access to more than £ 30 million in additional revenue. As it is, they will be playing in the group stages of the Europa league.

Napoli boss Rafa Benitez has been under intense pressure at the start of the season after his failure to get the club into the Champions League for the first time in a few years. The team failed to the last hurdle in the qualifying stage. Even though it is well acknowledged that Napoli had a tough draw, many expected them to reach the stages of the prestigious European tournament. It would have given them access to more than £ 30 million in additional revenue. As it is, they will be playing in the group stages of the Europa league.
The team also has been suffering from poor form in the domestic campaign and this has led to talk of Benitez leaving the role if results do not improve. The manager, though, appears to have kept his job until after the international break after managing a 2-0 win over Slovan Bratislava. This victory in the Europa League has put the club top of the group I with two wins out of the two matches. They hold a substantial advantage over Sparta Praha and Young Boys in the second place. Benitez said after this important victory that he has seen enough from his team to suggest that they are on the way up.
“I substituted Hamsik towards the end because it was only right to give him that recognition of applause from the fans in Slovakia. It seemed positive to me. I said all season that we deserved more and just needed a bit of luck. Slovan have quality players and when they run at your defence they do cause problems. We must now continue along that path, as everyone knew what they had to do. What are our chances of qualifying? I am not playing this game this year,” said Benitez.

Rafa Benitez almost guided Napoli to an automatic Champions League spots last season after the club finished third in the table. However, the summer and the start of the season has been of huge pressure for the Spaniard, who has not only seen his team get knocked out of the qualifying stage of the Champions League but also suffer with poor form in the league. This has begun rumours that Benitez would be departing Napoli in the next few weeks. The Spaniard has been linked with a return to the Premier League with Newcastle being interested in his services.

Rafa Benitez almost guided Napoli to an automatic Champions League spots last season after the club finished third in the table. However, the summer and the start of the season has been of huge pressure for the Spaniard, who has not only seen his team get knocked out of the qualifying stage of the Champions League but also suffer with poor form in the league. This has begun rumours that Benitez would be departing Napoli in the next few weeks. The Spaniard has been linked with a return to the Premier League with Newcastle being interested in his services.
After a run of poor results, Alan Pardew looks set to receive the sack from Newcastle. After having been in charge of several Champions League teams over the last few years, it remains to be seen if Benitez would be interested in the possibility of taking over a struggling Newcastle team. For the moment, the former Chelsea and Liverpool boss says that he is set to hold contract talks with president Aurelio De Laurentiis in the near future. The 54-year-old has only one year left on his contract and Benitez has denied suggestions that he is set to sign a new contract.
Napoli are really struggling for form and the team has managed just two wins in the last five. “I have a good feeling with president Aurelio De Laurentiis and I want to underline this because I sometimes hear rumours about an angry Benitez. De Laurentiis is a man who is doing a lot for Napoli. Yesterday we spoke a lot about the future and the Super Cup. We are working on important planning. When De Laurentiis comes back from the USA we will talk about the contract and how the team is growing. But now, we must only think about the present,” said Benitez.

Newcastle United is ready to pay the transfer fee of 15 million Pounds demanded by the Ligue 1 club Lyon for the French forward Alexandre Lacazette.
The Magpies will now have to hold personal talks with the player to agree terms with him as far as salary and the other perks are concerned.
Lacazette will have the company of a lot of his compatriots at St. James Park if he decides to go there.

Newcastle United is ready to pay the transfer fee of 15 million Pounds demanded by the Ligue 1 club Lyon for the French forward Alexandre Lacazette.
The Magpies will now have to hold personal talks with the player to agree terms with him as far as salary and the other perks are concerned.
Lacazette will have the company of a lot of his compatriots at St. James Park if he decides to go there.
One of the main attacking options that the Newcastle boss Alan Pardew had had last season was Loic Remy. He is not there at the club anymore now. He was brought in on loan for the previous season and he has returned to his parent club Queens Park Rangers having completed that spell.
Papiss Cisse, one of the other strikers at Newcastle, lost his form completely in the second half of the last season and nobody is sure how he is going to go during this season.
So, Pardew is quite rightly concerned about his team’s front line. There have been a couple of attacking young players brought in at St. James Park already this summer, but, the Magpies are exploring more options. They actually want to have somebody around whom the entire stargazing can be done and Lacazette appears to be one such player to them.
Lacazette has been a part of Lyon since the time he was a 12-year old kid. He has represented the French club at every level. He has more than 100 Ligue 1 appearances and more than 20 Ligue 1 goals to his name.
Apart from bringing new faces in, Newcastle has reportedly planned to offload some players too including Davide Santon and Tim Krul before the closure of the transfer window.

Former Liverpool boss Rafa Benitez has ruled out the possibility of Pepe Reina rejoining Napoli, but this time on a permanent basis, in the summer transfer window. The Spaniard spent last season on loan at the Italian club after losing his first-team spot to Simon Mignolet. The Belgian goalkeeper still reigns supreme at Anfield, which is unlikely to allow Reina back into the first-team for the coming season. He is widely expected to be on his way out. Barcelona were rumoured as one of the possible destinations for the 32-year-old, but the Catalan club signed other transfer targets.

Former Liverpool boss Rafa Benitez has ruled out the possibility of Pepe Reina rejoining Napoli, but this time on a permanent basis, in the summer transfer window. The Spaniard spent last season on loan at the Italian club after losing his first-team spot to Simon Mignolet. The Belgian goalkeeper still reigns supreme at Anfield, which is unlikely to allow Reina back into the first-team for the coming season. He is widely expected to be on his way out. Barcelona were rumoured as one of the possible destinations for the 32-year-old, but the Catalan club signed other transfer targets.

Napoli is widely seen as the last remaining solace for the player, who finally made his World Cup debut at the 2014 tournament for the Spanish national team. Reina appears to have rediscovered his good form in the 12 months at Napoli. Despite this, Benitez is that it is looking highly unlikely that the Italian outfit will be making an offer for Reina. The wages of the goalkeeper is proving to be a stumbling block as is the transfer fee demanded by Liverpool. Reina could cost more than £ 7 million given that he is still at the prime for a goalkeeper.

Benitez could only manage a third-place finish with Napoli in his first season back in Italian football. “We don’t seek a goalkeeper. Rafael, with whom I keep in touch often to monitor his progress first hand, Andujar and Colombo are a sufficient guarantee for our goal,” said Benitez, who regularly utilised Reina as the first choice goalkeeper last season. However, Napoli were inconsistent throughout the campaign and they could not sustain the title challenge as well as Roma or Juventus. The only consolation from last campaign was finishing in the top three and ensuring Champions League football for the upcoming season.