Jermaine Jenas Says He Expects Newcastle Boss Rafa Benitez to Stay With the Magpies

Former Newcastle midfielder Jermaine Jenas has expressed his belief that Rafa Benitez is not "going to walk" and will remain at the club for the foreseeable future.

The Spanish coach is believed to have been disappointed by the club's inaction in the transfer market, and after a week of recuperation from a hernia operation, is yet to comment on his side's 1-0 win against Swansea.

But Jenas has made clear his opinion that Benitez will not abandon Newcastle simply due to his frustrations over the lack of incoming players this summer.

Ian MacNicol/GettyImages

“I just think if you’re going to walk, why didn’t you just walk last year when you were in the Championship?” the BT Sport pundit told the Daily Star.

“It doesn’t make sense, this is Benitez, he will have had places to go. He doesn’t seem happy but I don’t have him down as a walker.

“I think he really does feel a passion for the club but I think he feels let down.”

Jenas was a regular for Newcastle when the club routinely competed in the top half of the Premier League, and he has admitted his surprise at the regression of recent years.

Mike Hewitt/GettyImages

“The fact they’ve gone from the players that they had then to what they’ve got now, I just look at the club and think, how does that actually happen?” he said.

“I can’t get my head round how it happens. But then I think about the position I was in and the reasons why I left. And those were the reasons.

“I thought, ‘I’m not going to develop as a player here, I’m not going to get any better, I’m not going to win anything, I’m not gonna play for England if I stay here’.

“Unfortunately that’s something that hopefully the club get rid of soon, because it’s an incredible club when the place is bouncing.”