Toon cannot get complacent, warns Harper.
Posted on October 13th, 2009 | 115 Comments |
On paper we’ve arguably got the best team in the Championship, populated by ex-Premiership players with skill and experience. There have been moments when this has looked true – phases in games when we’ve looked a cut above other teams in our ability to pass and keep the ball. But at times we’ve also looked a little overwhelmed when teams have come at us hard and fast, like Blackpool did.
Steve Harper has been warning that we mustn’t underestimate our opposition:
“We’ve had a good start to the season and with a quarter of the season gone we are happy with where we are.
“But there is a long way to go. We haven’t achieved anything yet.
“We can not afford to underestimate this division.
“There are 23 other teams in there who could all stop us from getting promoted. There are a lot of games in this league, more games than we are used to playing with a smaller squad than we are used to having.
“In this league, everybody is capable of beating everybody else. We’ve got to stay at a level where we are above that and that is going to take a lot of hard work.
“When we lost to Blackpool, they deserved the win. They worked harder than us over the course of the 90 minutes and fair play to them.
“That has been the only defeat so far, but we have to constantly remind ourselves that teams are going to make it extremely hard for us in every single match.
“In our last two home games we’ve dropped four points and that is frustrating.
“QPR and Bristol City have both come to St James’s Park and they have set themselves up to be difficult to break down and we are going to have to work out how to cope with that – because everyone will do it.
“If we had won those two games we would have had a big lead at the top of the table, but we haven’t managed to do it so the rest of the league are on our shoulders.
“If you look at it, West Brom, Middlesbrough and Cardiff have all lost a few games this season. We have to remember that could be us at some stage and it’s important we all stick together and get through it.
“When I say stick together I mean the players, the staff and the fans.
“We’ve got two away games in the space of four or five days against Forest and then Scunthorpe and when that happens, we’ve got to try and make sure we take four or six points from them.
“That’s the big challenge in this division, the speed with which the games come round.”
Fair points. I think the worst is yet to come for us, later in the season when injuries start to take their toll (even more than now!) and the crowded fixture list isn’t letting up.
I do actually think that, if our prospects for promotion still look good in January, there will be some strengthening of the squad via the transfer market if necessary. I think that will be the case even if Ashley is still in charge because the financial benefits of promotion are just too good to risk.
NUFCBlog Author: Hugh de Payen
I'm a baby-boomer of the punk rock persuasion, currently exiled in Somerset for crimes committed in a previous life where locals keep trying to poison me with something called 'scrumpy'. Hates sprouts, coat-hangers, Cilla Black, ornaments, Steven Seagull movies and 50 Cent (he's not worth 10).
Hugh de Payen has written 634 articles on this blog.
i expsect 6 points from the next 2 games stevie boy