How will Newcastle United do NEXT season?
Posted on May 13th, 2010 | 85 Comments |
Let’s look at the alternatives.
Relegation?
Probably lower than 35 points if the last season was anything to go by, though Toon old boy, Glen Roeder, was once relegated with West Ham despite having won 42 points, and had a brain tumour to boot. Not a good year for our ex-Captain there really, but I digress.
As you all know, there have been some huge amounts invested in top teams, and what used to be known as the usual “top four” is rapidly turning into the top five, top six etc, as teams such as Manchester City, Tottenham Hotspur and Aston Villa encroach on the usual suspects (Chelsea, Man.U, Arsenal and Liverpool), teams at the bottom are generally getting less points than they used to, while those at the top end of an increasingly top heavy Premiership get more. Just incidentally, when Newcastle were relegated to the Championship the year before, as many of you may know only too well, we checked out with a total of 34 points, with our points coming from seven wins and thirteen draws. This would have been enough to keep us up in the season just gone. Another point of interest (well, to me anyway), to get to the ‘Europa League’ in 2009/10, Fulham needed only 53 points, and, of course, they eventually made it to the final. On the other hand, to get into next years Europa League, Liverpool had to get ELEVEN points more.
Bearing this in mind, in this (nightmare) scenario, Chris and the lads would almost certainly win only a handful of games all season, nearly all at home. In the worst ever performance over a season in the Premier League, Derby County reached only eleven points at the end of the 2007/8 season, winning only one game, against Newcastle United of course under our magnificent supremo of the time, Sam Allardyce. Incidentally, though Derby manager, Paul Jewell, was taking the spankings ON the pitch that year, he was the one who was giving out some equally vigourous spankings OFF the pitch, to his mistress as revealed on film that year.
To take the Premiership season just ended as some kind of marker, Relegated Portsmouth won seven games and drew seven, reaching 28 points not counting a nine point deduction for going into Administration. Hull won only six games with no away victories whatsoever, but drew twelve, winning a total of 30points. Finally, the last relegated team, Burnley, weighed in with a mighty eight victories but only managed six draws. Even with our current squad with no additions, we should definitely be able to better these performances, and even the traditional 40 point safety margin which all bottom end managers look for to ensure peace of mind. Despite the much higher standard of opposition, our resilience at the back if nothing else should keep us out of this mess.
Just scraping through?
Once again using last season as a guide, anywhere between 31 and the record breaking 42 could see us through to fight another day in the biggest league. To put things in some kind of perspective, the lowest amount of points acheived by a team who survived was 34, I believe, by West Bromwich Albion under Chester-le-Street’s finest, Bryan Robson, who famously snatched survival from the jaws of relegation right at the death against Portsmouth in 2005. If this is the lowest points tally from a surviving team in the Premiership, and the above mentioned 42 is the highest for a relegated side, that’s quite a wide margin.
Going by last season’s example once again, this would put us in the same category as 17th placed West Ham with a total of eight wins, eleven draws and 35 points from this season just gone, 16th placed Wolves with nine wins, eleven draws and 38points, or 15th placed Bolton with ten wins, nine draws and 39 points. So we would would possibly need around eight to twelve wins, depending on how many draws we grind out to avoid the jaws of doom, something I suspect that Chris Hughton will be rather good out with his defensive acumen. This is where we should be at the very least.
Mid table battlers?
A much larger group of teams, from the Wearside vagrants with eleven wins and eleven draws, all the way up to Everton, with sixteen wins and thirteen draws. I won’t go into every team in the middle here, but if we are to settle into mid table mediocrity, these are the kinds of figures we would need to acheive. Stoke, who achieved promotion with a much poorer record than our own in the Championship, seem to have made this place their own without a huge investment, and they aren’t the only example by any means, so why shouldn’t we? Once again, it would probably be a question of defensive fortitude against some much better attacking players more than anything else.
Europa League.
We’re getting into ambitious territory now. The teams who qualified for next year’s Europa League were Liverpool, Aston Villa and moneybags Man City (the team who sound like a Gay anthem). This would be heady stuff for a team who have just been promoted at the beginning of the season. Once again, to give an idea from the season just ended, the mighty Liverpool won eighteen and drew nine, winning 63 points. Aston Villa meanwhile, though above Liverpool, won one less with seventeen games due to a surprisingly poor home record (only eight home wins). They made up this however with a better away record (nine away wins to Liverpool’s five) and thirteen draws to add to the pot, making a total of 64 points for them. Finally in this section, there’s Man City with 18 wins and thirteen draws.
Alas though, as mentioned above, qualification for the promised land of Europe is becoming ever harder since a brace of extremely wealthy benefactors have moved in, and though plucky little Fulham defied the odds in our own relegation season, it is becoming ever harder.
Champions League.
Well, what can I write about this? It would be something of a miracle if this were to come to pass. While we’ve qualified for the Champion’s League before, and even done it the year after being promoted, it would be much, much harder than it was under the likes of Keegan, Dogleash and St. Bobby. Once again, this would be for the reasons already mentioned twice above, the new money and top foreign talent which has flowed into several teams outside the traditional ‘Top Four’. If Chris and the lads managed it, Geordies all over the region, and the world would probably spontaneously combust with excitement. However, being realistic, and taking into account the financial position of the club in a league which is now chocka with owners who are richer than Croesus, this is almost certainly a goal which will have to be built up to over a number of years. Nothing’s impossible though, well, not much anyway.
Before I go, just a quick look at how the top four did last year. In a sign which offers some encouragement at least. It was Tottenham Hotspur who finally managed to break the top four monopoly, and not the vulgar, ill-gotten wealth of Manchester City as was widely expected. They managed fourth spot with a record of 21 wins and 7 draws, netting 70 points. Next up were Arsenal with 23 wins, 6 draws and 75 points. Then of course, we move from the world of the top four to the big two, who have collectively held the Premiership trophy for quite some time now, since the days when Arsenal had players like Dennis Bergkamp, Thierry Henry and Patrick Viera in their primes. Last Season’s runners up, Manchester United had no less than 27 victories, 4 draws, and a total of 85 points, with Chelsea just pipping them for the top spot with another 27 victories, and just one extra draw (5) which made all the difference.
So now it’s over to you. How do you think we will do next season? Vote now in our poll!
NUFCBlog Author: workyticket
workyticket has written 1091 articles on this blog.
With mike Ashley and joey barton, I think we will make it into the Europa league piece of piss :cool: