Hughton can lead us to safety, according to YOU!It’s official, well almost official, that Newcastle will avoid relegation from the Premier League next season.
Votes have been cast in our poll which asked how YOU thought we would get on in the big league next season. The options were varied, with the most optimistic option perhaps being a Champions League qualification place, right through to the other end of the spectrum with the worst scenario being relegation.
I can tell you now, it has been the most popular poll in NUFCblog.org history, with 2,215 votes cast. And I can reveal that an impressive 92% of people who chose to vote believe we will be able to avoid the dreaded drop back into The Championship. Of course it is just a poll on the internet, but it does give a pretty good snapshot with regard to the general feeling of people who visit this site. (more…)
Will the current squad measure up next year?In this, the second of my series looking at Newcastle United’s return to the Premiership, I will be looking at how the squad as it is right now would measure up to other squads in the top division. There have been many voices crying that Newcastle will need to draft in lots of big name players merely to survive, harking back to the days of Fat Freddy, perhaps, when Newcastle would waste huge sums on superannuated has-beens and untested overseas players who never seemed to find their way in the Premier League, something we are still paying the price for, even today.
All the noises coming out of the club seem to suggest, well, more than suggest that the days of the NUFC retirement home for football gentlefolk has gone, with an emphasis on younger players and a much more careful and measured approach. It is time to forget the past though and move on. Of course, being relegated to the Championship also had a huge financial price, and many of these ‘big ticket’ players were offloaded ASAP. The rollcall including Michael Owen, Damien Duff, Habib Beye and someone who came out of nowhere (well, Metz actually) to make a name for himself amidst the wreckage of last season, Sebastien Bassong. Some key players were kept on of course, and Chris Hughton signed reinforcements, albeit on a budget that was somewhat less grand than in the past. So, as things stand at the moment, how does our diminished squad measure up to the rest of the sides competing in next year’s Premier League? (more…)
Never again, we hope!Newcastle United undoubtedly had an excellent season in the Championship, fulfilling all of their objectives, something that some people said would never happen. But how do you think they will do next season in the much tougher world of the Premiership? Will it be relegation? Will we just scrape though like, say, West Ham and Wigan in the season just ended? Will we confound the critics again and become doughty mid table battlers with the ability to punch above our weight like Birmingham and Stoke? Or even more?
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. (more…)
