A chance for Toon to forget the past in their next five games?
Posted on November 20th, 2015 | 278 Comments |
For example, Newcastle’s next opponents at SJP this Saturday, Leicester are currently the highest of our next five opponents at 3rd in the League at the time of writing this, and are alone in this group in having won their last three in a row.
After that we have travel to London to meet Alan Pardew’s Crystal Palace in 8th, who are still two places above Liverpool, and will be our opponents after Crystal Palace, with Tottenham coming after that and finally, Aston Villa. Hence the relative prestige of the teams isn’t necessarily reflected in terms of recent form. For a bet on any of these teams and more, you can pick up some great free bet offers at bettingworx.com.
Aston Villa of course have been abject this season though, and currently find themselves bottom of the League. Hence, they are the only team to have done worse than 17th placed Newcastle so far! One would think this would be the easiest way to pick up 3 points from this group. However, like Liverpool with Jurgen Klopp, The Villans have also brought in a talented young manager in Remi Garde, who won the French Cup and French super cup with Lyon. Hence, if things don’t go as well as we hope against our next four opponents, we must hope that Garde has not manage to turn around Villa into a genuinely competitive side once again.
Getting back to Leicester, highly prolific striker, Jamie Vardy, is probably the most likely to score. He has scored 12 goals in 12 Premier League apearences this season, making him the top Premier League goalscorer so far.
Reasons to be cheerful for the Magpies
Newcastle of course are not doing very well themselves, only recently managing to escape the bottom three in 17th, though perhaps Steve McClaren can take solace in the fact that he is in good company, with Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea only one place above him.
However McClaren and Newcastle United can take solace in something far more important though as they go into their next five games and it is this: In the first six league games of their twelve so far, Newcastle took only two points, but in the second group of six games they have taken 8. In those first 6 games they only scored 3 goals, but in the other six they have scored 10, albeit that six of those goals were scored in one game against Norwich.
Hence Newcastle United are on an upward curve overall, and going into the next five games on the back of a victory against Bournemouth, but it has displayed itself in terms of erratic football rather than steady improvement: For instance, hopes after a very convincing 6-2 victory over Norwich were soon crushed by a 3-0 defeat against the team we hate losing against most, Sunderland. In my experience, it is normal that an improving team will be erratic before they are consistently good rather than making a steady game by game improvement. Newcastle were certainly like that all in one game against Manchester City five games ago. If you remember, Newcastle United actually started very well in that game, and should have gone 2-0 up when a perfectly good goal from Mitrovic was ruled out. The team then had a disastrous period of around 20-25 minutes after half time, letting in five goals and eventually losing the game 6-1. Writing as a Newcastle United fan, it is to be hoped that this is the case, and that the Magpies will start to show to show more consistency over the coming games, starting tomorrow against Leicester.
Toon’s next five fixtures
Newcastle United vs Leicester: Sat, 21st Nov, 3pm.
Newcastle United vs Crystal Palace: Sat, 28th Nov, 3pm.
Newcastle United vs Liverpool: Sun, 6th Dec, 4pm [SKY].
Newcastle United vs Tottenham: Sun, 13th Dec, 4pm [SKY].
Newcastle United vs Aston Villa: Sat, 19th Dec, 5:30pm [SKY].
Yo !