AS someone who has spent plenty of his time in casinos, Mike Ashley should know a thing or two about how to play poker. When he sits down with Rafael Benitez to discuss the future of Newcastle United later this summer, he might have to. For once, the Magpies owner will find himself taking on someone with an equally strong hand.

That hasn’t been the case for the vast majority of his St James’ Park tenure, with Ashley able to ride roughshod over those he has installed into the managerial role. Joe Kinnear, Chris Hughton, Alan Pardew and Steve McClaren were all negotiating from a position of marked inferiority when they discussed transfer policy with Ashley. They needed the Newcastle United job to try to build or rebuild their career; Ashley knew that and acted accordingly. A dictatorship emerged, with Ashley’s whims being carried out to the letter.

That will not be the case this summer. Benitez is a completely different proposition to anyone who has gone before him on Ashley’s watch, except perhaps for Kevin Keegan, who walked away when he felt control of transfer matters was being prised from his hands.

Like Keegan, Benitez is a hugely-respected managerial figure who will not be beholden to Ashley. For once, it could be argued that Newcastle United need their manager more than he needs them.

That was certainly the hidden message behind Benitez’s post-match pronouncements in the immediate aftermath of Monday’s promotion-clinching win over Preston. The Spaniard knows the current Newcastle squad is nowhere near good enough to survive in the Premier League, and also knows some of the players he would like to sign to improve it once the transfer window reopens.

However, after January’s shot across the bows from Ashley and his confidante, Graham Carr, Benitez also knows it could prove difficult to retain overall control of transfer dealings in order to force through the kind of deals he feels will be essential if Newcastle are not to suffer an immediate return to the Championship. Hence the political power play that continues to play out.

“You never know, that is football,” said Benitez, when asked whether he would still be in place at the start of next season. “Hopefully, we can put in the foundations for something that will be a guarantee for the future.” It was hardly an unequivocal refusal to walk away.

Benitez won’t be making such a refusal because his biggest bargaining chip when it comes to discussions with Ashley is the potential for him to quit. Previous managers were never going to make such a move – Benitez is unlikely to, but you couldn’t conclusively rule it out.

West Ham have long been interested in the former Champions League winner, and while Slaven Bilic will limp to the end of the current campaign, there could yet be a vacancy at the London Stadium in the summer. Might Benitez be a replacement for Arsene Wenger at Arsenal at some stage in the future? The fact it is even a possibility underlines the esteem in which he is held.

Clubs in Spain and Italy have made approaches in the past, and Benitez could treble his salary tomorrow if he was to instruct his representative to make a call to either China or the Middle East.

Ashley won’t want that because it suits his business interests and bank balance to have Newcastle in the Premier League, and the best way to keep them there is with Benitez at the helm. However, as previous situations have proved, what Ashley covets above all else is control and the knowledge that things are being done his way. That could put him at loggerheads with Benitez when the pair meet to thrash out the details of Newcastle’s summer spending.

Having been able to plot his own route last summer, when he earmarked a number of the players that have been so integral to this season’s promotion success, Benitez will not want to find himself in a position where his opinion is being ignored.

He will not demand a host of successful transfers no matter what the cost, but he will expect to have the final say over incomings and outgoings and will demand the right to pursue players who do not fit Ashley’s long-cherished template of ‘players under the age of 26, preferably from cheaper markets overseas, who boast significant sell-on potential’. Given the tensions in their relationship, he could also request the marginalisation of Carr, who spoke publicly yesterday in an attempt to defend his position in the wake of Thursday’s early-morning raids by officers from HMRC.

The fall-out from HMRC’s ongoing investigation into alleged income tax and National Insurance fraud could have severe ramifications in terms of Newcastle’s future transfer dealings, but for now, Benitez is right to claim, as he did yesterday, that it has to be ‘business as usual’.

That means transfer talks as a matter of urgency, and it leaves Ashley with a simple decision. Does he give some ground to Benitez, watering down some of his previous insistences that players of a certain age or price bracket were off limits, while swallowing some of his pride to accept that he cannot be setting all the parameters in which his manager is forced to operate? Or does he come down hard, reasserting his authority and insisting that it is his way or no way at all?

Adopting the second approach would ordinarily be his default setting, but for almost the first time in his reign, it comes with very real dangers attached. Lose Benitez, and you unquestionably lose your best chance of enjoying a successful season.

As the maverick decision-maker he purports to be, Ashley might yet decide that is a risk worth taking. But as someone who likes to weigh up the odds before committing his chips to the table, he will surely have to conclude that the potential problems far outweigh the benefits.

Allow Benitez to manage as he sees fit, and Newcastle could build on Monday’s promotion to successfully re-establish themselves in the Premier League. Make the same mistakes that have caused so much damage in the past, however, and the Magpies could quickly find that this week’s return to the top-flight is merely another false dawn.