Where will Newcastle United finish in the Premiership next season? [Poll]
Posted on May 31st, 2012 | 16 Comments |
Being the hopelessly deluded, stereotypical Geordies that we are, Alan Pardew seems to think that our expectations will go into overload now that we have finished fifth, and that he needs to embark on a mission to “educate” us to lower our expectations now that a new European front has opened in Newcastle United’s war for supremacy.
Well let’s find out how deluded we really are!
Undoubtedly, we had a very good season. However, though we did well, perhaps our expectations have been just a little on the low side if anything. Our fifth placed finish wasn’t, perhaps, quite the miracle some have thought bearing in mind what Pardew had at his disposal. Bearing in mind previous catastrophes under the current regime though, it has been understandable that expectations have been lowered somewhat by experiences in recent years.
On the other hand, if you look at the image showing the result of last year’s poll below, you will also see that it give the lie to the perennial whining of some fans that a large section of their fellows are just “doom mongers” who were confidently predicting our relegation at the start of the season. Only 4% predicted that, and some of those were voting from locations in the Wearside area! The great majority of you (60%) thought that we would be “Mid table battlers,” with the next highest (18%) correctly predicting that we would make the Europa League.
Please don’t get me wrong, I am not being dismissive of our fifth placed finish here by any means. As I wrote, we undoubtedly had a very good season leaguewise, if not in cup competitions. What I’m suggesting is that some of the foundations for our current success were already laid when Chris Hughton brought our current chief scout, Graham Carr, into the club in the latter part of our season in the Championship. At least some of our relative success so far has also been a testament to some excellent Carr influenced dealings in the transfer market, which now sees us with a highly competitive squad which should expect to battle it out with the likes of Everton for a solid seventh or eighth. Another example would have been Aston Villa, though their now departed manager made a bit of pig’s ear of their season and they were rather woeful underacheivers last term.
As I mentioned, we did come fifth though, rising above the two moneybags teams from Liverpool and Chelsea who should still be far ahead of us; that WAS indeed better than could have been expected at the start. So long as the club keeps it’s prized playing assets and augments them with a few more quality squad members, a finish in the top seven or eight and a decent campaign in Europe should be just about par for the course. One thing we can be sure of is that Chelsea and Liverpool will not stand still next season, and the feat may not be repeated a second time. Of course though, football is often far more unpredictable than that, so we ask you for another year:
How do YOU think we will do NEXT season?
Poll
NUFCBlog Author: workyticket
workyticket has written 1091 articles on this blog.
Depends on who we sell.
If the media are in the know and telling the truth we’ll probably be playing a reserve team next season in all competitions.
So far we’ve had Ba to Spurs, Krul to Chelsea, Cabaye and Tiote to Manure, Santon to Roma and Cisse to both Mancs.
Looks like we may have John Carver at full back, Nile Ranger at striker, Beardsley at midfield, Stone on the wing and Woodman Sr. in goal.