Benitez is now in charge at Premier League strugglers Newcastle United, but when appointed earlier this month he had clause written into his deal that he would be free to leave St James Park should he fail to save the club from relegation.
Advertisement
Villa have won just three league matches all season, sacking managers Tim Sherwood and Remi Garde, and have decided not to stage the traditional lap of honour after their final home game of the season against Newcastle on Saturday.
Newcastle climbed out of the bottom three for the first time in nearly two months thanks to a 1-0 victory over Crystal Palace last weekend and now hold a one point lead over Sunderland and two on second bottom Norwich as the trio fight to avoid the two remaining relegation places.
Villa are already relegated, but the final two relegation places will nearly certainly be taken up by two of Norwich City, Sunderland and Newcastle. 3 points against a team that was relegated a month ago and has the third lowest points total in Premier League history at this point of the season.
So how can you claim this delicious half-price pizza, I hear you ask?
Benitez was hired in mid-March after an insipid spell under Steve McClaren and has picked up 10 points from 27 available.
Villa came close to arresting their torrid run last week, conceding two late Troy Deeney goals to surrender a 2-1 lead at Watford, and interim boss Eric Black wants to see a similar level of effort from his players against Newcastle in order to help win back the fans. Worst team in the league, and we couldn’t solve them.
“We need them and I think the players deserve credit for taking these little steps back towards them under hard conditions”.
And the Newcastle legend admits Benitez should have been given longer to try and change the club’s fortunes. And given how bad this team has been, there is a good chance that it may be the last Premier League match at home for a while. We changed some players and put some offensive players on the pitch, but it was not enough.
“We play against Spurs in the final game, but the next one is the most important one because win this and we can approach it (the Spurs game) with the fans behind us and it will be easier to keep everyone on their toes and motivated”.
Advertisement
“Andros was very good last weekend, impressive not just with the goal, but he needed the other players around him to be working so hard to make sure we had a clean sheet and a good result”.
