Benitez or bust: Ashley's refusal to sell will force Rafa out of Newcastle

No offers on the table, no hope of salvaging a sorry season and maybe before too long, no manager either. Rafa Benitez deserves so much better than the mess at Newcastle United.

So do their long-suffering supporters. Unfortunately for them, they’re too good just to walk out.

Equally galling is that Benitez can’t match their unwavering loyalty anymore. Why should he? He stuck by them against the better judgement of many the summer before last when the club were relegated in disgrace.

READ MORE: Newcastle takeover talks collapse

READ MORE: Newcastle set to decide Peter Beardsley’s future

He stuck by them, steadied the ship ans returned the Toon Army to the Premier League at the first time of asking. He kept his promise.

Now, it’s the doomsday scenario. This time, if they do slip into the Championship again, there is no easy route back. A bad few weeks, and the club’s value plummets.

Amanda Staveley’s takeover bid has hit the rocks. Newcastle United remain up for sale but Mike Ashley has seemingly lost all interest in dealing with Staveley and PCP.

They’ve never fulfilled their great ambition, they’ve had dark days sure having twice been relegated, but this uncertainty could strangle them.

PCP Capital Partners, her Middle East investment fund, were said to have offered £250m for the club. Ashley, although keen on a quick sale, has reportedly lost patience. Concerns arose about the legitimacy of the bid, and, exhausted, he called it quits.

It leaves an impatient Benitez wondering if it’s all worth it. He doesn’t need the money, and frankly the laidback Spaniard doesn’t need the stress. It’s a poorly kept secret that the owners’ failure to sell – or failure to deliver the players he needs to turn the club’s poor season around – could result in him walking.

Now the Magpies are stumbling on the tightrope like a Geordie after a few too many Newky Brown’s.

According to reports the former Real Madrid and Liverpool manager has been told to forget about signing players for money. Only loan deals, and those not requiring loan fees or all the players’ wages being paid, will be sanctioned.

Newcastle, at leaders Manchester City on Saturday night, could easily find themselves in the bottom three by the end of the weekend.

The following two Premier League games, against Burnley and Crystal Palace, will provide a forecast of just how serious this storm is.

The worry for Newcastle fans must also lie in Ashley’s statement on Tuesday, the loaded-gun approach and deliberately provocative. The volatile nature of his ownership was there for all potential interested parties to see when labelling Staveley’s negotiations as “a complete waste of time.”

What a message too for Benitez, now on his last legs and starting to think what many have long been saying.

Suggestions too that the takeover needs to be parked until the summer and every focus possible put on keeping the club up.

Ashley has an incredible corporate brain. Bottomline: the rich are rich for a reason. He’s not as hopeless as he looks, sharper than the waddle would have you believe.

He now has a very big business decision to make. Appease his manager, allow him to sign and write off a few million or risk the club’s value nosediving by crashlanding into the Championship.