RAFA BENITEZ has expressed “a lot of sympathy” for the Newcastle United fans intent on protesting against the club’s owner Mike Ashley this weekend, while suggesting he wants the focus to be on delivering results on the pitch with a united front at St James’ Park.

Benitez, who also criticised comments from former Sky Sports pundit Andy Gray which suggested the location of the Magpies makes it difficult to attract players, has urged supporters not to boycott games and to give the team full backing.

There will be another fan protest outside Ashley’s Sports Direct store in the centre of Newcastle ahead of Sunday’s visit of Chelsea to Tyneside, after a summer Newcastle made a profit of almost £20m in transfer deals.

Benitez was left frustrated when the window closed and, while he stopped short of supporting the fans’ protests, he knows it is a sign of how much they feel he can bring greater times to St James’ with the right backing from the top.

Benitez said: “I have been talking for two months about what we have to do and why we have to do this, and which is the way to do it based on my experience as a manager for years and years.

“But I have a lot of sympathy for our fans because they are really good. They know the city, they know club, they know the North-East and how well you can live here, they know all these things.

“They would like to see the club do things in one way. What I would say is just be sure that when you go to the stadium, you support the team because it's the only way for us to be stronger. The other things, I have to respect them and I have to concentrate on my job.”

Knowing the window to sign players has closed until January, Benitez knows he can’t afford to spend any longer talking about what went wrong as Newcastle look to claim a first win of the season after a point from the first two fixtures.

"I don't think (it’s a distraction),” he said. “Not for players. For me it was more that during the transfer window, there were players who were coming or maybe not coming, then especially players maybe leaving or not leaving, like when we had two or three players who had offers.

"The players need to settle down now, go back to their principles, and see where we were, then see where we want to be. And the only way for us is to work as hard as we were doing last year."

But he rubbished Gray’s comments in the media earlier this week when he claimed Newcastle have to accept they will struggle to convince top players to head there over Liverpool, Manchester and London.

Benitez said: “We don't need to carry on and carry on. When I was in Liverpool, they were talking about: 'Oh, you have to compete.' But I was doing the analysis, and to compete with London and Manchester was difficult.

"Now they say: 'In the North-East, they cannot attract players.' Yes we can. We can because here you have all the potential and everything to be a massive club. So we can do it, but we have to do things right. That's it. Everybody knows that.

"But I don't want to waste time talking about that all the time because we have to play against Chelsea, which is a massive game, and a very difficult game for us.”

Newcastle are on the verge of offloading Henri Saivet to Bursaspor and Achraf Lazaar to Genoa in two deals that will be of little concern to Benitez. He has also revealed that DeAndre Yedlin should be fit to face Chelsea.

Newcastle followed up a defeat to Tottenham by drawing at Cardiff last weekend, and Benitez feels his players are showing signs of greater mentality after the success of finishing tenth last season.

“If we think in the city and at the club that we finished tenth and that's it, we are thinking we are better than we are,” said Benitez. “No, we finished tenth because everything was really, really good. We had a period after January when everything was fine.

“We had a period before, when everything was wrong. Not even wrong, just you could win a game 1-0 or lose 1-0. We were losing games where we deserved to win or draw. One player can make a difference. For us, it had to be team work. That's it. We cannot lose our focus.

“It was not an easy summer. We were expecting players and they were not coming early. Still, we need to settle now."

Newcastle: Dubravka; Yedlin, Lascelles, Clark, Dummett; Shelvey, Diame; Ritchie, Perez, Atsu; Muto.

Chelsea: Kepa; Azpilicueta, Luiz, Rudiger, Alonso; Jorginho, Kante; Pedro, Hazard, Willian; Morata.