IT was a marriage of convenience which was always going to end in a messy divorce.
For Mike Ashley, having a world-class boss at the helm was the easiest way to ensure Premier League football – and the cash which came with it – as well as take the heat off his hated regime.
For Rafa Benitez, managing Newcastle was the chance to show off his skills again in England’s top flight and possibly even awaken a sleeping giant.
But Ashley and Benitez were always uneasy bedfellows – and in truth, it is remarkable their relationship lasted as long as three years.
Toon managing director Lee Charnley really did pull a rabbit out of the hat for Ashley when he got Benitez – recently departed from Real Madrid – to replace Steve McClaren in March 2016.
It was an appointment which went against the grain of all Newcastle’s previous ones under their owner – high-profile, expensive, sensible.
Yet sadly, Ashley’s lack of ambition and penny-pinching approach stayed exactly the same, despite Benitez’s helpless attempts to change it.
And that is ultimately why an inevitable parting of the ways was finally announced at 12.30pm today.
It took less than a year of Rafa’s reign for tensions to start coming to the surface.
Benitez failed to keep Newcastle up in his ten-game mission at the end of the 2015-16 season, but surprised many by agreeing to lead their Championship campaign.
With money banked from the expensive sales of Moussa Sissoko and Georginio Wijnaldum, he was given carte blanche to sign whoever he wanted that summer, so the likes of Matt Ritchie and Dwight Gayle came through the door.
But of his six transfer windows, that was the only one in which Benitez was not at logger-heads with MD Charnley.
On deadline day in January 2017, Rafa was raging that Newcastle would not cough up the cash to re-sign Townsend from Crystal Palace – a deal he thought would all-but seal their promotion.
Without any winter reinforcements, the Toon still went on to win the Championship title.
Yet trust was already broken – and the writing was on the wall as early as the following summer ahead of Newcastle’s Premier League return.
At the Toon’s pre-season training camp in Dublin, Benitez was at the end of his tether.
He warned Ashley he must “keep his word” on spending every penny the club generated – and for the first time admitted he’d had mega-money offers from China.
By that stage, Benitez had seen top target Willy Caballero join Chelsea on a free transfer as Newcastle refused to pay his wages.
While his first-choice striker signing Tammy Abraham had gone on loan to Swansea because of the Toon’s dithering over the deal.
This was when the first of Benitez’s many quit threats came out via his advisor.
And while new arrivals did eventually come through the door, they were not of the calibre he wanted.
Benitez lost some respect in the dressing room that summer when, in his bid to persuade the club to strengthen, he talked down the quality of the squad which won promotion.
But after a disappointing start to the 2017-18 season, he genuinely feared relegation and privately said his side were “not good enough, not big enough, not fast enough and not skilful enough”.
Things almost came to a head in January 2018 when Benitez was again pushing for more money to spend in that window.
The club were angry as they claimed their manager had signed off on a transfer budget of £70million over four windows the previous summer.
So, having grown sick of Benitez’s politicking and press briefings, Ashley was ready to release a statement hitting back at his own boss.
At the 11th-hour, the Sports Direct tycoon was talked out of pressing the nuclear button – but it showed how strained their relationship had become.
Amazingly, it was at this same time that Newcastle first tried to get Benitez to extend the three-year contract he signed in May 2016.
But there was no chance of the Spaniard doing that. The long goodbye had already started.
The summer of 2018 brought with it a stand-off – and a bizarre twist.
Ashley refused to release funds until Benitez committed his future to the club by putting pen to paper.
But he was also willing to let him take charge of Spain at the World Cup on a caretaker basis, after Rafa was approached following Julen Lopetegui’s shock sacking on the brink of the tournament.
That did not end up happening, but neither would Benitez extend his stay unless he saw evidence of ambition.
And when the Toon would only get his top target Salomon Rondon on loan – refusing to pay £16.5m because he was a year off turning 30 – he knew he was fighting a losing cause.
Charnley declared the Toon would keep living within their means and warned, ‘We can’t just give Rafa what he wants come what may’.
David Coverdale on Newcastle MD Lee Charnley
Benitez might well have quit before the start of that 2018-19 season but he was hamstrung by the clauses in his contract.
To walk away, he would have had to pay Newcastle £6m – his year’s salary.
And he was so annoyed by the details of the deal he actually sacked the agent who negotiated it.
After another slow start to the season, Benitez got his way this January with the £21m club record buy of Miguel Almiron.
But his challenges to the club to change their wage structure, recruitment policy and training ground fell on deaf ears.
Newcastle wanted to keep Benitez but would not budge on their business model.
That much was clear when their financial results were released in April.
Sitting in the St James’ boardroom, Charnley declared the Toon would keep living within their means and warned, ‘We can’t just give Rafa what he wants come what may’.
Benitez met Ashley and Charnley in London the week after the season finished and was offered a one-year extension on the same £6m-a-year salary plus bonuses.
Yet he wanted more assurances on recruitment and infrastructure – and they were not forthcoming in the weeks which followed, as communication completely broke down.
Benitez actually turned up at Newcastle’s training ground a fortnight ago and his camp tipped off a camera crew to capture him seeming to say his goodbyes.
But if that was one last political play to put pressure on Ashley, the Toon owner called his bluff today by pulling the plug.
