Manchester United could have a brighter future with Rafa Benitez at the wheel

"Ole's at the wheel", so the song of the season goes. “How good does it feel?” the second line asks.

It is meant to be rhetorical, of course, but it’s actually an interesting question, because the answer is probably not quite the foregone conclusion it was a few weeks ago after the pathetic display against Everton.

United’s attempts to ensure the club maintained their status as England’s finest after Sir Alex Ferguson retired have been even more abysmal than their most pessimistic supporter could have dreaded, and things look to be getting worse rather than better as we approach the sixth anniversary of the legend’s retirement.

This campaign can be broken into three segments: the woeful start under Jose Mourinho, during which they amassed just 26 points from their first 17 league games; the revival when Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was brought in as a temporary replacement, which saw them win ten and draw two of 12 matches; and then the slump that has seen them take just six points from six games after the Man City defeat to fall away from the Champions League picture.

Solskjaer now has a three-year contract but the way in which his players turned it in against Everton - and be in no doubt how shameful it is that a team can be outrun by fully eight kilometres in 90 minutes - shows just what a difficult task he faces to get United back to the top of table.

A huge clearout is required and after his flying start he is now beginning to resemble the Molde and Cardiff manager rather than the hero who reignited the engine when he first got behind the wheel.

This is clearly a squad capable of mixing it with the best when the mood takes them, but successful sides are always in the mood, and it is starkly obvious United pick and choose when they fancy it, which is the one characteristic that would have been impossible to detect in the Fergie era.

United chief Ed Woodward now faces a dilemma. Does he trust Solskjaer to make the necessary renovations to the squad in the summer or does he accept the Norwegian is not the man for the job, cut his losses and bring in someone else?

The weird situation that exists in football, whereby it is bad appointees rather than the people who make bad appointments that get the blame when a club underperforms, means Woodward can probably have another roll of the dice without coming under much scrutiny himself, and that is what he should do.

Replacing the manager tends not to be the correct solution to the problem of bad results, and when there is a clamour to sack a gaffer I am always quick to ask who should take over, which is invariably met with a long pause.

But in this case there is an extremely obvious replacement, a wise owl with 18 years’ experience at the top level, an intimate knowledge of English football and an outstanding record of success.

Rafa Benitez is too good for Newcastle. It is hard to think how he could have done a better job for the Magpies since his arrival in March 2016, when the situation was too desperate even for him to rescue them from relegation.

Rafael Benitez has been in the Newcastle United dugout since 2016Credit: Stu Forster

He could have treated that as a rather unsuccessful one-night stand but instead he stayed on and guided them back to the top flight as champions, since when they have finished tenth and then reached safety this season after a desperate start that, due largely to a chronically tough set of early fixtures, saw them languishing with two points from their first nine games.

They have subsequently amassed 1.5 points per game, which equates to an impressive 57 points over a full season, despite having a limited transfer fund.

Benitez is a master of his trade and the best person to try to halt United’s slump, yet his name seldom crops up when there is speculation over who will get one of the top jobs.

It is possible when managers have been around for a certain period of time they simply fall out of fashion, and perhaps three years at St James’ Park has caused people to declassify him as an elite manager even though it is hard to believe anyone else could have been as successful as he has there.

He would have a better chance than Solskjaer of attracting the right kind of players to Old Trafford and a superior capability to mould those players into a team fit to wear the shirt rather than the rabble who strolled to defeat at Goodison on Sunday and have appeared to spend the season picking and choosing when to bother giving it their best shot.

If the United board do the right thing this summer they have a chance to be able to once again call themselves title contenders. If they get it wrong they might even find their status among the unofficial Big Six is in jeopardy.

It will be fascinating to know how the United fans feel about the identity of the man behind the wheel in August.

There should be no limit to the places each-way betting can take us

Betting in the digital age has advanced rapidly and, in many ways, excitingly and it remains true to say that if you are one of those punters who is unaffected by the chore of stake restrictions there has never been such a fun time to lose your money.

More markets on more sports, in-play betting, build your own same-game multiples and cashout are just some of the thrilling new features on the modern betting landscape, but there is one area that has failed to keep pace with the online revolution.

Each-way betting could be regarded as something of an anachronism, dating back to the old days of short pens and betting slips and still using the same chart to determine the terms that has been around since shops were legalised nearly 60 years ago.

There really shouldn’t still be such things as bad each-way races or that frustrating feeling of backing a horse that finishes third but your payout is denied by a 100-1 shot being withdrawn at the last minute.

In fact there is a case for saying there probably shouldn’t be each-way betting at all, with separate win and place markets being more logical.

But for many of us it retains its appeal, primarily by providing a consolation prize for when we were right but not quite right enough, but also as a way of making multiples more interesting.

Things have changed for the better recently as bookmakers have fought a place war as well as a price war. Many big races and golf tournaments now benefit from extra places, meaning it is now as important to check the each-way terms as the actual prices themselves when making comparisons.

And in bet365’s Each-Way Extra and Betfair Sportsbook’s Each-Way Edge things have taken another step forward by enabling users to choose how many places they want to be paid out on and adjusting the price accordingly.

So for example if you wanted to back Mildenburger in the 13-runner feature handicap at Epsom on Wednesday when his win price was showing at 11-4 based on standard terms of a quarter the odds the first three places you could have backed him at anything from 3-1 getting only two places to 13-8 getting six places.

This is an excellent service for racing punters but taken to its logical conclusion there should be some kind of request-a-place facility for any event comprising four or more runners in which the customer, having identified their selection, can then choose how many places they want and also their fraction, with an appropriate price being displayed.

So I might fancy a football team to win their division but fear one particular rival, meaning I want a price based on a third the odds the first two as a form of insurance.

Conversely, I may decide to take a chance on a rank outsider in a golf tournament but want the luxury safety net of a fifth the odds for 15 places.

Creating an algorithm to calculate fair odds should be a piece of cake for the modern bookmakers’ tech team and would, in my view, bring an intriguing new dimension to one of the most traditional forms of betting of them all.

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