RAFA BENITEZ is keen to focus on turning Newcastle United’s season around rather than listen to the ongoing takeover talk at St James’ Park.

While speculation mounts as to the identity of the parties showing tentative interest in buying the club from Mike Ashley, Benitez accepts that the Magpies face the biggest game of the season so far on Saturday.

Having failed to win a single game so far, the visit of Brighton is viewed as a big opportunity to finally end that woeful run – even if it has included facing four of the top six teams so far.

Newcastle sit in the relegation zone and the visit of Brighton is the first of ten fixtures before Christmas which they will look at with greater confidence that the majority of the eight games they have had so far.

Benitez’s preparations have been hit with the thigh injury sustained by defender Ciaran Clark during the international break. He is back in the North-East for assessment after missing Ireland’s game with Wales on Tuesday with the problem.

Newcastle have Federico Fernandez and Fabian Schar as alternatives to play alongside Jamaal Lascelles at the heart of the defence, while left-back Paul Dummett is expected to be available again despite missing the Welsh get together.

Newcastle have not been as poor as their league position suggests, having only lost by more than one goal on the one occasion this season – and that was at home to Leicester.

Brighton will arrive at St James’ without an away win so far this season, and they have lost three of their four outings despite sitting in mid-table under former Newcastle boss Chris Hughton.

Benitez has had his players back on the training ground together and takeover talk has been ignored.

For the second time this week it has been reported in the Middle East that there is strong interest from a Saudi Arabian investment group in taking over from Ashley.

The Sporstwear billionaire is thought to have dropped his asking price to around the £300m mark in an attempt to sell.

As well as the Saudi group – which followed earlier claims of a different Saudi group being interested – there is also known to be a couple of groups keen on Newcastle based in America.

Peter Kenyon, the former Chelsea and Manchester United chief executive, has been working on putting together a group capable of buying out Ashley.

But there is now a second group of wealthy US investors looking into ways of purchasing the club.

There has been no offers so far so a deal is still some way off.

And, having gone through this and more last season when Amanda Staveley made an unsuccessful bid, Benitez is certainly not going to get carried away until a sale looks to be on.

He is no nearer to signing a new contract with the situation as it is, and has been pushing for clarification over the size of his January transfer budget.

It is understood that he is not expecting to have much to spend when the window opens, even through he spent just £23m on permanent deals over the summer.

Benitez feels that investment is required again otherwise the threat of relegation could become even greater, which is why it is so important that Newcastle go on a decent run form until Christmas – just to given them a chance of staying up.