A regional daily barred from a football manager’s unveiling last summer has conducted an exclusive sit-down interview with his replacement during his first days in the job.
Newcastle daily The Chronicle spoke to Rafa Benitez following his arrival at Newcastle United on Friday.
Benitez replaced Steve McClaren at United five days after The Chronicle’s sister paper the Sunday Sun ran a back page editorial calling for the latter’s sacking.
The Chronicle ran its exclusive with the new man on Monday’s front page, pictured below.
Its journalists were also present at Benitez’s first press conference, with a live blog providing updates on the newspaper’s website.
The Chronicle had previously been among a number of newspapers barred from McClaren’s first press conference in June last year.
The incident led the National Union of Journalists to brand the club “childish”, while Sun columnist Eric Paylor called it a “PR disaster” for McClaren.
The Chronicle, Sun and their sister daily The Journal had previously been banned by the club for nearly 14 months from October 2013.
Benitez is tasked with keeping United in the Premier League with just nine games reamining this season.
His reign began with a 1-0 defeat to league leaders Leicester City on Monday night.
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Good work by the Chron and well done Benitez for making it clear he’s his own man.
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Has the Chronic got their ‘Benitez sacked’ page ready? They’ll need it for the end of the season, if not sooner.
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Come on Mrl, give Rafa some credit – it could ‘Benitez quits’.
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