Newcastle United face West Ham United at St James’ Park on Saturday after losing their opening two league games without scoring. With the euphoria of promotion a rapidly receding memory, tensions behind the scenes are escalating and the squad look ill-equipped for the Premier League. So how has it come to this, why is the “cold war” between Rafael Benítez and Mike Ashley intensifying?

Surely it cannot be true the manager and owner rarely speak, let alone meet?

Bizarrely it is. Benítez and Ashley have met once this year, in May, and do not talk on the telephone. Instead Lee Charnley, Newcastle’s managing director, serves as a conduit, passing messages between the two. When Ashley made a rare trip to Tyneside to watch Newcastle lose to Tottenham on the opening day of the season, he departed without speaking to Benítez. Matters are complicated by the involvement of Justin Barnes, an abrasive lawyer and long-standing Ashley confidant, in club business. Introduced in January, apparently to ready Newcastle for a possible sale, Barnes’s input is understood to affect transfers.

Benítez has made it plain he does not believe he has had proper transfer market backing this summer. How strong is his case and what is Ashley’s counter-argument?

Although Benítez has spent around £35m on six new signings they are not his first choices and he has been forced to take significant risks at the cheaper end of an inflated market. Javier Manquillo, for instance, lost his right-back berth to Billy Jones at relegated Sunderland last season, while Joselu struggled to get a game at Stoke City.

Ashley, though, is said to be perplexed that a Championship side he spent £55m reinforcing last summer (although the Spaniard made a £30m net profit on transfer dealings) is not stronger. He wants to slim down an over-size squad by offloading unwanted players including Grant Hanley, Jack Colback and Tim Krul before making further signings. The problem is that Colback and company are on high wages and their largely Championship suitors will wait until deadline day to attempt to force cut-price deals through.

While Ashley’s parsimony may also reflect disappointment at his failure to sell the club this summer, his annoyance at what he perceives as Benítez’s sniping in front of the media was perhaps reflected by the presence of Keith Bishop, the sports retail tycoon’s PR adviser, monitoring the press conference Benítez staged on Tuesday to preview Wednesday’s home League Cup defeat to Nottingham Forest. Was he on a spying mission?

On Friday Bishop was absent and Benítez more forthcoming. “Last year we signed players for the Championship and made a profit but after promotion you have to change the players, which makes you busier than established Premier League teams,” he said.

“We have to improve the team but I am signing the players I can, not the players that I want – although that doesn’t mean I don’t like the players I have. The reality is that, if you cannot pay £25m, you have to go for a different kind of player. To buy quality you have to pay; we haven’t done that.”

The most Benítez has spent on an individual this summer is £10m for the former Norwich winger Jacob Murphy. Asked if he would be permitted to invest £15m on a single player he replied: “I don’t think so.” Instead a man desperate to borrow Stevan Jovetic from Internazionale this week is using his peerless contacts to facilitate potential loan deals.

Ashley has told Benítez he cannot recruit further without moving people out first but the manager is wary. “How can I let players go in certain positions if I don’t have definite replacements,” he said. “Sometimes you cannot get your targets.”

Why doesn’t Rafa walk out?

For assorted reasons, most notably loyalty. Behind that sharply forensic, ruthlessly analytical mind, lurks a football romantic who relishes the adoration of Newcastle’s fans and is excited by the club’s immense potential. Benítez does not want to let those supporters down – or his staff and players. A confirmed Anglophile, he enjoys the Premier League and wants to remain reasonably close to his Merseyside-based family. Then there is the compensation clause in his contract which is understood to stipulate he, or another club, must pay Newcastle around £6m if he resigns.

“When I said I would stay it was because of the city, the fans, the stature of the club, being in the Premier League and living close to my family,” said Benítez. “I was expecting we could be in a better position now but we’re not. We will see if we can improve in the final week of the transfer window.

“I will try to do my job. My aim is trying to improve things, so when I leave, whenever it is, the team and the club will be better.

“ Normally, managers talk about projects saying they need four or five years. I’m not talking about that, because you never know in football … what I want here is that we have a football vision, that we allow the business to make a profit but football is the priority.”

What is the dressing room consensus?

Mohamed Diamé, Newcastle’s former West Ham midfielder, is not underestimating the importance of this meeting with his old club. “West Ham’s a big game,” he said. “After the start we’ve had, it’s become massively important. We need some points as soon as possible.”

Diamé hinted that debilitating off-field politics are exerting a detrimental dressing-room impact. “If some stuff happens outside it can maybe affect us in, how can I say, our preparations for the game,” he said. “But we won’t allow that to happen on the pitch. We’re always hearing a lot of people saying we need new signings and more strength but I believe we have enough quality. We need to fight, show character and carry the responsibility ourselves. No one said it was going to be easy.”