The table can't lie (can it?)Newcastle United currently sit at 3rd in the Premier League, but how do the games we’ve played so far compare with last season?
Much has been wondered about whether we’re worthy of our 3rd place position. Not just from the usual suspects in the world of punditry who seem incapable of giving Newcastle much credit for anything, but we’ve had cause to wonder a bit ourselves.
There are too many variables to consider and the semantics of the word ‘worthy’ leaves too much open to subjective opinion to ever reach an objective conclusion about our ‘worthiness’. All we can say is that we’ve met the challenges that have been thrown our way so far.
But I had this burning urge to create an HTML table. Don’t knock it – it’s no more unusual than fancying a pork pie and rates fairly low in my list of insanities. So create a table I did and what it does is to compare last season to this season with the games we’ve played so far. (more…)
Aston Villa next.Going back 6 games ago, after the Arsenal comeback game, I did a piece on the next 7 games, namely:
Blackburn away Birmingham away Bolton home Everton home Stoke City away Wolverhampton home Aston Villa away.
That brings us from February the 12th to present day.
In the piece, I mused about such things as, how many points we’d get, how important they’d be in light of the games directly after, i.e. our last 6 games of this season including Man U at home, Blackpool away, Liverpool and Chelsea away, the rescheduled Brum fixture and our final game against fellow newly promoted side, West Brom, at home.
Well the 7th game is almost upon us and it’s the return fixture with Aston Villa. Since our demolition of them at SJP in the first game of the season 6-0 a lot of water has passed under both team’s bridges. Villa have had a torrid season wallowing around the bottom end of the league, while we’ve mostly been in the top half. Still, it won’t be one to take lightly. (more…)
A crucial set of games awaits.After the football wasteland that is a round of International friendlies, we can start thinking about ‘proper’ football again…Phew!
So, the next 6-7 games.
Next up is Blackburn away & Joey Barton has been quoted as saying that his little spat with Pederson is history, which personally I think is good to hear, as Joey would be stupid in the extreme to try & carry it on with so many important games coming up.
Then we’ve got Birmingham, also away, & rescheduled from the winter wonderland postponement. Unfortunetely for us they are on a bit of a run of form despite their relatively lowly league position. They have won three out of their last four games, drawing with Man City in the other one. They have also secured a League Cup final appearence in one of their two recent wins over West Ham.
The third game will see us come up against Bolton at home. Revenge is definitely required in this one after our dismal showing at their place earlier in the season. Which arguably did for Chris Hughton. Double revenge then? (more…)
Threatening the top 10 already!At the start of the season, finishing in 17th place was considered enough of a target for Newcastle this season. It is now clear, however, that we can aim a little higher than that..
Alan Pardew recently claimed that he wanted to eventually threaten the top ten, but I’m not too sure we’ll be all that far away from it this season.
We would surely have to suffer an almighty collapse of form or an unprecedented number of injuries (even for Newcastle) to consider a 17th place finish anything but disappointing.
I thought I’d take a look at the games we have left and try to estimate how many points we’ll end up with. Don’t trust my estimates though. I once ‘estimated’ that a Christmas tree I saw at a garden centre would fit in my house. It did, but only after I chopped 4ft off the top and 2ft off the diameter. It was more of a Christmas bush by the time I finished.
Nevertheless, I’ll have a crack. We have 16 games left to play – 8 at home and 8 away – and the following are my guesstimates as to how those games will go on a month by month basis:
January
Spurs (H) … draw
1 point from 3 for the remainder of the month. (more…)
Martins - Scorer in our last match at Old Trafford.It’s getting close, very close, to kick-off time for the new Premier League season. Once again we will be Old Trafford bound, where it is fair to say that our record has less than impressive over the years.
It’s been 38 years since our last league win at Old Trafford, and I don’t see that run coming to an end this season. You never know though I suppose, stranger things have happened at sea and all that.
Anyway, Manchester United away is probably the toughest away fixture out there to be honest. It isn’t often they lose at home, but they have picked up a reputation for being slow starters to the league campaign. That is a bit of a myth in fairness, but I’ll go into that a bit later. First, lets take a look at how Newcastle United tend to kick-off the new season. (more…)
