Aston Villa 0 Newcastle United 0: Magpies on brink as Rafael Benitez prays for Everton result against Sunderland

Spaniard is left hoping for an unlikely result at the Stadium of Light after his side's limp draw leaves them set for relegation

Rafael Benitez knows Newcastle's fate is out of their hands (Getty)

On Saturday evening Rafael Benitez was reflecting on the unlikelihood of his Newcastle United managing to avoid relegation. They had only managed a 0-0 draw at Villa Park, a result which, given Sunderland’s 3-2 defeat of Chelsea, leaves them stranded in the relegation zone with just one week of the season remaining.

Sunderland, to make things worse, have a game in hand, hosting Everton on Wednesday night. If they win that it will all be over before the final day, when Newcastle host Tottenham Hotspur and Sunderland have a rather easier game away at Watford.

What Newcastle need, then, at the least, is for Everton to get a result at the Stadium of Light on Wednesday evening, to keep the contest alive into next Sunday. So Benitez, clinging to any hope he could find, was talking them up.

“I have not been thinking too much about that,” Benitez said, “but Everton were doing well away from home. So we have to wait, and believe that they can get that result. After, we have to be ready, so it doesn’t if they do their job, we have to do our job.”

That was at 5.30pm, 40 minutes after Newcastle’s dismal draw. But any optimism about the challenge Everton might put up at the Stadium of Light on Wednesday did not last much longer than that. Soon enough Everton were 3-0 down at the King Power Stadium, although they went on to pull a goal back through Kevin Mirallas.

Everton have now lost their last two away games by a combined score of 7-1 and put up no fight whatsoever in either one. The chances of them rallying themselves for Wednesday, when they have nothing to play for, and stopping a resurgent Sunderland side one win from safety, look slim in the extreme.

But then what else can Newcastle do from here but watch and hope? “I can watch it, but to be fair it will not change anything,” he said. “Maybe I will try to enjoy with our staff, and then prepare the training session for the day after. The only thing that you can do is be sure that if you play against Tottenham and you have a chance to stay up you have to win.”

It is a very difficult situation, and a long way from how Benitez’s season started in Madrid in August. It was a bold move to come to Newcastle and it looks, with one week to go, like he will not quite be able to do enough to keep them up. Had he arrived earlier it would surely have been different.

But Benitez looked over his brief spell in charge, knowing how fine the margins are. “At Real Madrid we did what we had to do, and stayed high, but they changed things, and then I accepted this challenge,” Benitez said.

“For me, it was an opportunity to come back to the Premier League, and try to show everyone that we could do well. I had the confidence in the potential of the club and the players, and we were fighting until today that it could be different. If Jack Colback scored, or Aleksandar Mitrovic scored, we would still be talking about how we have a chance. So we have to believe Everton will do a good game.”

Aston Villa (5-4-1) Bunn 6; Hutton 6, Bacuna 5, Lescott 5, Clark 6, Toner 5; Westwood 5, Sanchez 6, Gana 5, Ayew 6; Sinclair 5 (Hepburn-Murphy, 90)
Newcastle United (4-4-1-1) Darlow 6; Anita 5, Mbemba 6, Lascelles 6, Dummett 5; Townsend 4, Tiote 5 (Perez, 67, 6), Colback 5 (De Jong, 90), Wijnaldum 4;  Sissoko 4; Cisse 3 (Mitrovic, 52, 7)
Man of the Match: Mitrovic