The next three games will shape our season.

Posted on October 5th, 2010 | 41 Comments |

Martinez brings his Wigan team to Toon next.
Martinez brings his Wigan team to Toon next.
Whilst I think it’s fair to say that Newcastle haven’t always got what they have deserved this season in terms of points, the fact is that we can’t change that now.

The games that we have played have gone now, and now the focus has to shift to what is in front of us and not what could have been.

Next up, after another irritating international break, will be Wigan at home, and that is a game that we simply have to take three points from. We can’t afford to keep slipping up against teams that are likely to be around us come the end of the season. The kind of slip-ups that we witnessed against Blackpool and Stoke cannot be repeated if Newcastle are to harbour any real intention of staying in the Premier League beyond this season.

It sounds harsh, but in my opinion it’s true. Newcastle simply must start putting points on the board. You could argue that we have played well anough to deserve points at Manchester City and at home to Blackpool all you want, but the fact is that we didn’t get anything.

The next three games are vitally important for us as they are all against opponents that will be in or around the bottom half of the table this season. First up, as mentioned, will be Wigan at home, then it’s a trip to West Ham, then it’s the derby at home against Sunderland, but what can we expect from those games in terms of points?

As I said earlier, the target for the Wigan game has to be three points. They have generally been woeful this season but they do seem to hold some sort of jinx card over us. On the plus side, at least we have Ryan Taylor on our side now so he won’t be able to inflict any damage against us again!

West Ham away will be a toughie. Upton Park is never an easy place to go to but Newcastle have shown that they can actually play away from home this season. I would take a point from that game right now if I’m being honest.

Then there is the derby. The big one. What can we expect from it though? It’s a hard one to call and will be a tight game, as local derbies usually are. It’s still a home game though and I’d like us to get three points.

So if we can get through these three games and pick up seven points, how would you feel? That would leave us on 14 points after 10 games and I would guess that people will feel a little bit better than how they are currently.

How do you think we will get on?

NUFCBlog Author: toonsy toonsy has written 643 articles on this blog.

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41 Responses

  1. I think 5pts is being more realistic. We might draw with Wigan and beat the scum or the other way round and I definitely expect at least a point against WHU. So yeah, maybe 7 but 12 from 10 wouldn’t be too bad either.

  4. Even without Ben Arfa i can see us getting 9 points against those teams , none of them have set the premiership alight so far this season but i would be happy with 7 points , if we could pick up 14 points from every 10 games then we will be in the prem next season .

  5. Last sunday had a potentially milestone/watershed feel about it. There were shades of Shearer’s killer injury against everton back in 97/98 (?) about it. I would urge us to respond as a club as arsenal did last season after the Ramsay shocker – by going on a fine run, galvanised by the injustice and stinking misfortune of last week.

    We have been playing well without getting the basics right at home. In the second half of last season we had won our home games by half time after coming out with all guns blazing in the first 25mins. We need to start to do that again. Hit hard with two strikers and a rocket tempo early doors – especially for the next 3 winnable matches.

    Krul/
    raylor/colo/williamson/jose
    routledge/barton/tiote/jonas
    shola/carroll

  6. wigan are underperforming and the scum is overperforming. On form they’d whoop our ass. I think the hammers is the best chance of 3 points, based on our away form and their lack of pace.

  7. To add on: 17 More points to be earn for 2010 matches…which is to win around 5/6 more matches in 2010…

    I believe the team can do it…

    HWTL. ;)

    For those who don’t quite understand what i said…. imo,24points for 2010 matches is one step closer to staying in the PL…. as in 2011…we need another 5 or 6 matches to win…and we will get 40points….

  8. Tricky, all of them.

    Sunderland have been playing really well and have not been beaten in their last 3 games against Arsenal, Liverpool, Man Utd and probably should have won them all.

    Wigan can beat anyone on their day, ask Spurs and Chelsea and West Ham aren’t as shit as their league position suggest, although I think we can get something from all of these games I’m not too confident.

  9. Guys,iirc we have not lost to Mackems AT HOME for such a long period of time…

    I guess,this kind of derby simply put pride into test…

    And i chatted with some of the NUFC supporters here in my country singapore,even Sunderland looks much better than our team now..

    We can’t afford to lose them,and if happens,is a disgrace to me…

    At least a draw it would be fine..NO LOST pls.

  10. AOD – Those records are there to be broken. Similar to what we did at Everton and Chelsea recently……

  11. all three matches are totally winable. the one thing you didn’t mention is we have a midweek carling cup match with arsenal on the wednesday before the mackem match. wouldn’t mind seeing our “second” squad perform as well as they did against the chelsea side.

  12. eastcoast – It’s because I couldn’t give a toss about the distraction cup ;)

    For this season, it’s only the league that matters.

  13. hahaha fair enough. given the teams that are still in though, the optimist in me says lets still go for it. might be tough considering that (at least according to the carling cup site) that we have to play arsenal on both tuesday AND wednesday ;)

    agree that the league is and must be priority #1.

  15. If we play football in the same way with 100% commitment and good passing football like we are capable of, then we should get a good haul from the next 3 games.

    However I would forsake the wigan and west ham games for a good 4-0 win against the unwashed tramps ;)

  16. However, as his club manager, I wish to say that whilst he is naturally competitive, Nigel is first and foremost a great player as well as being honest and loyal and I support him wholeheartedly.

    “I also want to take this opportunity to wish Ben Arfa, who I rate very highly, a speedy recovery and I hope to see him back in action soon

    thats wat mancini said on their website, sounds like he wanted ben arfa out the game to me the cahnt!

  18. Agree entirely, Toonsy. We’ll learn so much from these matches, especially:
    1. What is Plan B, with Benny out?
    2. Has CH worked out how to improve our effectiveness in “easy” matches? (Like home to Stoke)
    3. Will we start to get the results we deserve if we keep putting in the performances?
    4. Can we keep putting in the performances? (Especially in the difficult matches like Everton away)

    I was very encouraged on Sunday that, not only did heads not go down after any of the body-blows that came, but we actually looked stronger at the end of the match. I’m going for:

    Wigan: win 2-1
    Hammers: 1-1
    Mackems: 1-1

    (Sorry about that last one; they’re just doing really well at the moment and I can’t see us rolling them over.)

  19. We’ve wrote to the FA demanding punishment of De Jong. Personally I’m pleased we’re not taking their decision to let him off.

  20. The fact that the ref did nothing actually leaves the FA the option to punish de Mong far more than the ref could have done. Let’s hope they grow some and do so.
    And then they can sack that ref and launch an investigation into match-fixing!
    (Reactionary?? Me??)

    Yeh. Bit.

  22. Crooks, the lot of ’em. As are most people in top-flight football. FIFA are the grand masters of football dodginess.

  23. Whumpie….the fact that the ref saw it and did nothing leaves the FA no options to punish him.As far as I understand it, under their own crap rules the FA can only punish if the ref says he didn’t see the incident….of course if they had the balls to change they’re own sh!t rules it would be different but I doubt it’ll happen until a Rooney or Gerrard gets their leg broken.

    Anyway time to move on,5 points minimum from the next 3 league games is the least we should be looking for but none of them will be easy as all 3 teams will be confident of getting points of us imo.

  24. Rich – As I understand it the FA can hand out a punishment as the referee took no action. If he had have booked De Jong then there could have been no retrospective action, but now the door is wide open. I would also assume that the letterbox is open, particularly for a cheque from someone, maybe an Arab or something……… :roll: ;)

  25. are ya sure Toonsy,the Fa have already said there’d be no further action as the ref saw the incident…apologies if I’m wrong

  26. TOONSY your not saying some people are not 100% honest.

    dont belive it,its like saying batty isnt as honest as the days long :)

  28. @toonsy: Records are meant to be broken~~Ya i agree…

    But would you want the mackems to do that?????

    Seriously i rather maintain that record for as long as possible.

  29. Toonsy…..para from when Gerrard elbowed Brown…..of course the rules may have been changed since then ;-)

    “FA rules do not allow retrospective action against a player if the official sees the alleged offence”

  30. Ice….aye,he had a soft spot for the toon as well apparently, from serving with a Geordie in the army.

  31. I really hope that the FA actually stands up for what they’re supposed to do in these instances and punish De Jong excessively while banishing Martin Atkinson to refereeing Sunday League games in the Newcastle area only. If some ‘accident’ were to befall him during one of those, i don’t think many witnesses would claim to have seen anything

    lol

  32. ime not sure on this point,but if a member of the public reports a case of GBH are the police duty bound to check it out,or does it have to come from benny,just with it being in a public view,now that nufc have asked the f.a. to look at it

  33. Can I just say to people not to underestimate the makems. Work with a few of them so watch their games, just to take the piss really, however I have to say, i’ve had little to take the piss out off. They’re not playing to bad and were better than Aresnal the other week and were equal to Man U, so lets not take them for granted.

  34. AOD – Of course not and I would love for that record to be carried on. My point being is that citing these kinds of records is asking for trouble as we have broken a few recently ;)

  35. Rich – You know that link you put up yesterday about that Sunday league player being jailed for a tackle? Did you see my reply?

  37. Yeah that one. Basically it was something (involving a woman, naturally) that had been going on for some time. Then the two lads came head-to-head on the pitch and that happened, but hey didn’t see eye to eye for a long time before that.

    Having said that, I’ve played at Long Lawford and it isn’t a pleasant place. The game I played in, one of their team-mates had just died so loads of people turned out (about 500, a lot for that level). When we equalised to make it 2-2 the match got abandoned because they started fighting with the crowd. There was motorbikes and allsorts on the pitch and blokes with baseball bats. Madness :lol:

    We got the three points though by default :D

  38. aye,when ya said there was more to it I guessed a woman would have been involved somewhere :-)

  39. Doesn’t it also count if he mentions the incident in his post match report?! He mustn’t make reference to it for there to be action I think

  40. Wigan at home draw
    West Ham away draw
    Sunderland at home lose

    CH needs to get his tactics right, we need to score more goals or we’ve no chane to win games.

  41. When all our players decide to actually work in the same match then we might win. Right now we’re a checkerboard of effort/little or no effort. WORK is the issue. Sometimes you actually have to earn it.