RAFA BENITEZ shrugged off suggestions Newcastle United don’t like Mondays with a smile and a laugh before insisting Turf Moor can be the scene where an unwanted record is finally broken.

The Magpies head to Burnley tonight looking to make it three wins in a row in the Premier League, but in order to do that they will have to end a hoodoo that has dogged the club for the last six years.

Not since a 3-0 victory over Wigan Athletic in December 2012 have Newcastle won on a Monday in the top-flight; a run of ten Premier League matches in front of the TV cameras and they have lost them all.

It is even longer since Newcastle last gained an away point on televised Monday night, a 2-2 draw at Everton in 2012.

Not since Demba Ba’s heroic hat-trick in a 3-1 victory at Stoke in October 2011 have they won on their Monday travels.

The run is purely in the Premier League – they did win twice on a Monday during the 2016/17 Championship season.

Benitez said: “The records are there to be broken, so we have to change that. That’s it. We will score in this one and we will win and that’s it! We will change the stats. The stats are there to be changed.”

The former Liverpool and Real Madrid boss has never been one for dwelling on unwanted records, nor has he taken too much satisfaction from the positive ones, so he doesn’t think that the Monday misery is guaranteed to continue.

He said: “I’ve told you: you change the manager, you change the players, you change the environment, you change the league, you change everything. The record is fine, but it doesn’t matter.

“You go there and how many of these players were playing the first game when they lost? How many of the Burnley players were playing? Were they playing on Monday at this time or was it different? Was the league the same or was it different? The numbers change every year, so it’s good for writing something but it doesn’t change too much.”

He insists only when he was at Napoli, when the club’s president Aurelio De Laurentiis demanded certain things were done, has he ever shown signs of superstition but never for runs like this.

Benitez said: “Not this kind of record, to be fair. I was in Italy and everything was like ‘don’t do this because we lost or we have to wear this because we won’ and in the end you don’t know what to do or wear!

“In Italy in general and Napoli especially there were just a lot of superstitions about things. There was a circle that we were doing, holding hands in the dressing-room, because the chairman wanted to do it before the games. We did a circle and we won so we carried on.”

Benitez doesn’t plan to introduce the ‘circle’ inside the away dressing room at Turf Moor, where Mike Ashley would have to take on the role of De Laurentiis in a bid to inspire the players pre-match.

It will be the first time Newcastle have been on Sky’s Monday Night Football since Benitez decided not to take up the offer to appear as a pundit on the show in October. He was due to be on as a guest ahead of the Leicester and Arsenal match, but felt Newcastle’s poor form didn’t rest well with him making an appearance.

Newcastle will decide if Jonjo Shelvey, Yoshinori Muto and Jamaal Lascelles are in the squad, although they are unlikely to start.