Benitez reflects on night out with Newcastle owner Ashley

Rafa Benitez says Wednesday's dinner with Newcastle owner Mike Ashley and the first-team squad was enjoyable but refused to offer any details of conversations.

Ashley took Benitez and the squad to dinner in Newcastle - for pasta and pizza - on Wednesday in an attempt to establish a better working relationship.

"It was a pleasant dinner - that's it," said Benitez ahead of Saturday's trip to Manchester United.

"Everything that we were talking about will stay between us. Normally, in all the teams I have been, we used to have some kind of dinner with the owner or the president. It is something very common in football.

"I will not talk too much about that, because we have to concentrate on the game. We have a very important game to play. As I said, it was a pleasant dinner, we talked about everything and now we have to concentrate on football.

"There was a good atmosphere, the players are fine, everybody was relaxed and that's it."