Newcastle vs Sunderland: Rafa Benitez turns the screw ahead of crucial derby day

Newcastle manager seeks ‘wall of sound’ at St James’ to end Sunderland run of wins

Rafa Benitez insisted he wants to focus on the positives after losing his first game in charge (PA)

The week of the Tyne-Wear derby is unlike any other in the North-east calendar, so at lunchtime yesterday Newcastle supporters received an email from Rafa Benitez. In it he told them to create a “wall of sound, a tide of black and white” and that Sunderland will face “not only the 11 players on the pitch, but a 50,000-strong army”.

There had been double training sessions in the days after the players who had limped out of the battle to keep Steve McClaren in his job hobbled out for the new manager’s opening game at Leicester City.

Benitez has further turned a screw this week. All days off between now and the end of the season have been scrapped. There was relief in his tone when he spoke of the commitment Newcastle’s players had shown in that 1-0 defeat at Leicester on Monday. It has been an ingredient that has often gone missing. In 27 Premier League games in the last four seasons Newcastle have lost by three or more goals.

More crucially, in five of the last six derbies with Sunderland that Newcastle have lost, they have not even scored. Played six, won none, scored one, conceded 13.

It is no wonder there is a swagger when the red and white supporters filter through Barrack Road, parallel to the Milburn Stand, up to Level Seven of St James’ Park, to a vantage point that must now seem as comforting as a hug from a loved relative.

Moussa Sissoko has lost in all six of those games, but in the last four transfer windows Newcastle have bought 17 new players. They have a new manager who has a desire to draw a line under the unprecedented run of failure. But will the record play on the players’ mind, Benitez was asked?

“Maybe the British players and the ones who have played here for a long time will be thinking about this and I will try to change that,” he said. “The other players, it is an important game because of our position in the table and they hear about the derby from our fans, but maybe it will not be a big difference.

“We will try to keep the players confident to try and make sure they approach the game in the right way, because it’s the derby, it’s more important, we have to get three points and that may be the start of something special.

We have to get three points on Sunday and that may be the start of something special

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“I have the same confidence that I had before, maybe a little bit more because I have seen the commitment of the players. They have worked really hard in training sessions. Every single session from the first day, we check, we talk with the staff, with players and everybody is telling us that they are training really well and they are concentrating. We can see that. We didn’t know how they were working before. We don’t have any complaints about the players. I’m confident we can win but the main thing isstaying up. The main thing is to do the job and take the three points.”

You cannot measure the significance of what victory would bring in the 156th meeting of two sides fighting for their lives, but no one could remember a bigger one. Perhaps that was why there was a bid from Benitez to play down his long-running feud with Sam Allardyce, the manager of Sunderland.

“I don’t think it’s important for the future,” he said. “I’ve been very happy away for two and half years and I don’t have any problems. I am professional and I want to win the game and hopefully the players will be the most important thing during and after the game. As managers we can sometimes make a difference and have some headlines but I don’t think that is something to worry about.”

Allardyce, who was again critical of Benitez in his autobiography released last year, had done the same. “The book is about my life,” he said. “That was the time we had when we had our conflict. We had our differences. We both went to the papers and aired our differences which made life a lot easier for you lot to write something about it.

“It is not about me and him but the two sets of players. I always thought joining in the mind games was a good thing in those days because why does everyone seem to think only the top managers at the top of the league could play mind games and not the ones who managed down below.

“It was complete nonsense to me so I played mind games like everyone else and found it very, very entertaining.” He was also complimentary about an appointment which has, if nothing else, made the task of landing the seventh straight win in such a huge derby, that bit more difficult.

“Well you could not get anyone better in the market now, could you?” Allardyce added. “I think it was a surprise across the country. What he has done and the clubs he has managed, the success he has gained wherever he has been, it is a big, big capture for Newcastle. We have to make sure it is not, hopefully, his first win on Sunday.”

Were Benitez to manage to reverse the tide of recent history, he would emulate the bizarre statistic that has seen the last four Sunderland managers lose their first game and then win the Tyne-Wear derby.

If he does, he will have his wall of sound.