From secret board meetings to a PR specialist in crisis management - how Newcastle replaced Steve McClaren with Rafa Benitez... With Newcastle facing relegation and the home crowd calling for McClaren to be dismissed after Saturdays 3-1 defeat at home to Bournemouth, the club have acted.Here, Sky Sports News HQ reporter Keith Downie lifts the lid on developments at the club over the past week which led to the former England boss being sacked and Newcastle appointing a man who was managing Real Madrid earlier this season… Five games which cost McClaren We look at five games which cost Steve McClaren his job Steve McClaren had been under pressure at Newcastle for some time and on Thursday night last week a source outside of the club told me he could potentially lose his job if Newcastle lost to Bournemouth at St James Park on Saturday.However, on the morning of the match, another source, from within the club, said that no matter the result against Bournemouth, hed keep his job. So there was conflicting information going into the game.More than the 3-1 defeat, though, it was perhaps the reaction of the fans which heightened the speculation around McClarens future. Half of the crowd were singing Steve McClaren, youre taking us down, and the other half were singing Youre getting sacked in the morning. Newcastle fans vented their anger at McClaren during the defeat to Bournemouth Interestingly, Keith Bishop was at the game. Hes owner Mike Ashleys PR man - a specialist in crisis management - and would have spoken with members of the board and fed that back to Ashley. Its not unusual to see Bishop around the club - but he is a more frequent visitor when there are problems to deal with.After the game, I was the first to interview McClaren. Stood there in the tunnel, he told me he absolutely would not walk away. I asked him whether he thought hed be in charge for the Leicester game on Monday Night Football on March 14, and he just said he hoped so. At that stage, he knew he was under pressure.Sunday was a day off for everyone at the club, and there were no developments. Previously, when Alan Pardew or John Carver were under pressure, Newcastle have issued statements or made press briefings indicating their support of the manager. There was no announcement made by the club in the wake of the Bournemouth game. McClaren says the negative chanting from the Newcastle fans in their 3-1 loss at home to Bournemouth was justified On Monday, there was a board meeting, attended by three of the four board members. The missing person was McClaren, who didnt even know the meeting was taking place.When McClaren was appointed Newcastle manager last summer, he became the first Premier League manager to be given a place on a clubs board. However, the first he knew about Mondays meeting would have been when he read the papers or turned on his TV.The meeting took place near York, with managing director Lee Charnley, the main decision maker at the club, joined by chief scout Graham Carr and club legend Bob Moncur. Its believed they discussed a number of managerial options, with Rafa Benitez and David Moyes the most high profile. McClaren continued to take training this week Injured players were the only ones at the club on Monday - the first-team and McClaren himself returned on Tuesday for training. The manager still hadnt heard anything about his future when he left at 4pm and headed straight for home.McClaren remained in the dark on Tuesday night and returned to the training ground at 8am on Wednesday morning. It was then that he was invited to a meeting with Charnley. That was the first time hed heard from the managing director since Saturdays defeat.However, McClaren left the training ground at 4pm and went straight home. Charnley had asked him to meet him at the stadium but McClaren refused. Instead, they had a quick chat over the phone. McClaren arrived for work as usual throughout the week On Thursday, McClaren came back in to take training and we later interviewed stand-in skipper Jonjo Shelvey, who said the players had let the manager down. Once again, McClaren left the training ground having not heard anything about his future at the club.It seems that on Thursday evening, the deal with Benitez was agreed in principle. Newcastle had been speaking with two English intermediaries about Benitez taking over from McClaren.Charnley phoned McClaren on Thursday evening, asking him to come to the club on Friday - his day off. McClaren told him that if he was only coming in to be sacked, hed rather do it over the phone and not mess around. Rafael Benitez arrives at the Newcastle training ground McClaren would have known he was at risk, given all the speculation around Benitez, and at 10.30am on Friday he received a call from Charnley telling him he had been sacked.Charnley had wanted the deal with Benitez to be all-but complete by the time he sacked McClaren and, at 2pm, Benitez arrived at St James Park to sign his contract. It was the first time Benitez had met Charnley face-to-face and, half an hour later he had become Newcastle manager. Benitez with Newcastle managing director Lee Charnley Authentic Nike NFL Gear . The 29-year-old from Port Colborne, Ont., has nothing but good things to say about former U.S. marine Liz (Girlrilla) Carmouche ahead of their co-main event Wednesday on the UFCs "Fight for the Troops" televised card in Fort Campbell, Ky. 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Yankees manager Joe Girardi says hes thinking about allowing Rivera to do it this weekend, when the Yankees finish their season with a three-game series at the Houston Astros.Conor McGregor is no longer headlining UFC 200, but the brash Irishman continues to dominate the build-up to the event. Jon Jones rematch with Daniel Cormier for the light heavyweight title was officially announced as the new main event on Wednesday, with a press conference to promote the event taking place at Madison Square Garden later in the day. McGregor was absent from the stage after being pulled from the card over his failure to fulfil media obligations but beleaguered UFC president Dana White was nonetheless forced to field multiple questions about the featherweight champion. Conor McGregor is not pleased about being pulled from UFC 200 White maintains McGregor has only himself to blame for the cancellation of his much-anticipated rematch with Nate Diaz.I didnt prevent Conor from fighting at UFC 200, White said. Everybody, if you look at [last weeks] news conference... Joanna Jedrzejczyk came in from Poland. Claudia Gadelha came in from Brazil. This is what we do. This is how it works.I didnt prevent him from fighting at UFC 200. He knew what the deal was. I told him what the deal was. He opted to do that. UFC president Dana White stands between Daniel Cormier (L) and Jon Jones as they square off during media availability for UFC 200 White sidestepped a question about how much of a financial loss the UFC would take for their decision to withdraw their star attraction and confirmed the company has no plans to lower the price of UFC 200 tickets.McGregors withdrawal has been met with disapproval by a large proportion of UFC fans and White has been acutely aware of that fact on social media by the Irisshmans legions of supporters.ddddddddddddn indication of the McGregors popularity is illustrated by the amount of people who tuned in to watch a live stream of the press conference for his fight with Diaz in February. That achieved a peak audience of over 360,000, while Wednesdays event topped out at just over 33,000. Jose Aldo (L) will fight Frankie Edgar for the right to face Conor McGregor To be left scrambling to announce a new main event the day tickets go on sale was not what White envisioned when he announced the card with much fanfare nearly 12 months ago.When asked if he was disappointed by fan and media reaction to the card he has put together, White said: We expect it to be big and it will be big.He did reveal there could be another fight added, seemingly admitting the UFC are not unaware of the apathy in some quarters to their revised line-up.We just added this fight to the card and we are not done, White added. Conor McGregor will be absent from UFC 200 The rift between McGregor and the UFC seems wide at the moment and White confirmed he has had no contact with the 27-year-old in recent days.Despite this, White was adamant McGregor will be back in the octagon relatively soon, just not at UFC 200.Conors going to fight again, White said. 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