Rafa Benitez could be set for a return to football management north of the border | OneFootball

Rafa Benitez could be set for a return to football management.

That return potentially could be north of the border.

The Daily Record reporting (see below) that Glasgow Rangers is the club.

With imminent new owners said to be interested in appointing Rafa Benitez as manager, when they complete their takeover.

The San Francisco 49ers backed consortium reported to have agreed a deal in principle, with just the final details to be sorted.

Philippe Clement became the latest Rangers manager to not last long and for the time being, Barry Ferguson is in temporary charge but seemingly little chance of him getting the job permanently under new owners.

Rafa Benitez has repeatedly said that he would prefer another job in England, but the chances of these days of a Premier League club towards the right end of the table wanting to take him on, looks very unlikely to say the least.

I feel sorry for Rafa because he took on such a tough challenge at Newcastle United and was brilliant for us, only to be all too predictably undermined and misled by Mike Ashley, eventually forced out of St James’ Park.

Since leaving Newcastle United bad luck and bad decisions have haunted Rafa Benitez these past six years.

A dubious decision to go to China and manage Dalian Professional became a disastrous move when Covid came along.

Rafa Benitez arguably making an even more disastrous decision to go Goodison, many Everton fans behaving disgracefully and making the job impossible from the start, protests and abuse even before he was was appointed.

The former Newcastle United boss then taking on a very difficult job back in Spain at Celta Vigo.

In seven days time, it will be exactly a year since Rafa Benitez was sacked from that last job, time appears to be running out for him if he wants to have another go at having another go at building his way back to having another go at a decent level Premier League club in England.

Rafa Benitez turns 65 in April and Glasgow Rangers could be a decent job to take on, as always in Scotland, then just a case of doing better than one other club.

Ange Postecoglou got his chance at Spurs after managing Celtic, so maybe Rafa Benitez can take inspiration from that, if he does indeed want to work towards getting back eventually with a sizeable English club.

Record Sport’s Scott Burns on the chances of Rafa Benitez becoming Rangers manager:

“It was suggested to me on Saturday that Benitez was one of the options Rangers were looking at. When I say Rangers, I’m told it’s very much the incoming new owners who would be looking at the next manager and I know he has started to look at options.

“I was told that Rafa Benitez was one they were going to talk to. I spoke to a colleague who is very close to Rafa Benitez and his agent and they had said there had been no contact at all.

“If they are interested in Rafa Benitez they haven’t taken it to the stage where they have said to Rafa ‘look, we want to talk to you, would you be open to discussions?’ – as it stands I think it might still be at an early stage with the new Rangers owners waiting to get past the next hurdle. Once they get past that I would expect things to be firmed up. If that is the case that Rafa Benitez is on the list I would suggest they would speak to him then.”