Sunday Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Hayden: We must be calm
TOON STAR CALLS FOR STABILITY AS TRAINING GROUND BUST-UP AND UNHAPPY FANS THREATENS TO DERAIL THEIR SURVIVAL BID
ISAAC HAYDEN has demanded Newcastle keep cool heads as they fight back from Matt Ritchie’s bust-up with Steve Bruce.
Newcastle midfielder Hayden says the players are well aware of the situation they are in – three points above third-bottom Fulham and on a run of two wins in 17 games.
Bruce has patched up a training-ground row with midfielder Ritchie this week and is refusing to give up on his at St James’ Park reign, despite widespread opposition from fans.
Hayden said: “This is our time now. We’re not going to be judged by our formation against Manchester United or Chelsea, we’re going to be judged by West Brom, Aston Villa and Brighton. Those next games are crucial.
“The problem I have with it is that people go, ‘Oh, there’s no realism’. But what do you want people to do? Do you want everyone to panic? Be like, ‘Oh, God we’re in a relegation battle’.
“That’s not going to solve anything, either.
“But what’s also not going to solve anything is just saying, ‘No, we’re fine’. It’s about being calm and level-headed, not too happy and not too low. It is about being stable and focused and believing in yourself.
“The way you go about it is to ask, ‘Would Fulham rather be in our position or in their position?’ – we’ve got three points more than them.
“Would they rather be chasing us or would they rather be us, with a gap? They’d rather be us.
“They have to win games just to catch us. We have to win games to be safe.”
Striker Andy Carroll has demanded a recall from Bruce to step in for injured top trio Callum Wilson, Miguel Almiron and Allan Saint-Maximin.
The former Liverpool and West Ham star wants to add his muscle to the fight and said: “The lads had a chat after the Wolves game. We have to stick together and that is what we are doing.
“It is massive this weekend. Every game is a cup final and getting harder. We are not producing the results we want and we need three points.
“Sam Allardyce will have West Brom organised and know what they are doing on set-pieces and tactics and have their ideas. We have to stop that.
“If my chance comes, I will take it and get on the score sheet. We played well against Wolves and Manchester United. We have created chances, but not converted them.”
Ex-Toon boss Allardyce endured unpopularity on the terraces on Tyneside like his mate Bruce, who said: “We’ve been in it a long time. I have huge respect for what Sam has done.”
OF ALL the words spoken by Pep Guardiola since his arrival on these shores, his description of Tottenham Hotspur remains his most cutting observation.
The Harry Kane Team.
It is a good job no one has asked him to describe Aston Villa in four words.
But plenty will do it for him, plenty will come to an inescapable conclusion on the basis of games like this. Football without fans is nothing.
You cannot class Aston Villa as nothing without Jack Grealish, but they are certainly something else. Badly lacking in inspiration, painfully short of creativity, deprived of a charismatic leader, devoid of a fear factor.
Grealish has now missed four Premier League games on the spin – with an injury Dean Smith at first insisted was not particularly serious – and Villa have scored just twice in those matches.
They nicked a win at Leeds, but no one can say Grealish’s absence has not had the sort of considerable effect most thought it would have.
But that does not make performances such as this one in any way excusable.
This is an ownership that has spent an awful lot of money on players and, in the cold light of day, they would surely not be too happy if the team was as reliant on one player as it seems.
And a player who was here before they were.
Smith has done enough already this season to be spared the tough questions from above but this is a very ordinary run of form.
And of course, it will be used as a vision of what life will be like if Grealish departs for one of the Big Six in the summer.
It could have been worse against Wolves had Romain Saiss and Conor Coady, bizarrely enough, not missed a couple of second-half sitters, but Villa did deserve a point, if only for going close twice themselves in the first half.
But the fanciful talk of Villa winning games in hand and having
How an injured player is allowed to watch a match is a mystery. What happened to essential journeys? If you’re not working, you don’t go to watch your mate work. If a bus driver is injured, he doesn’t go and sit on the back seat to look at his replacement.
a dog in the top-four fight has proven to be just that.
Fanciful.
A battle for a place in Europe’s second-ranked competition will soon start to look a bit fanciful.
This was very average stuff, pretty much living down to pre-match billing.
It cannot have looked any better on TV than it did from the stand in which Grealish sat.
How an injured player is allowed to go and watch a match is a minor mystery, by the way.
No big deal at all, obviously. But what happened to essential journeys and all that?
If you’re not working, you don’t go somewhere to watch your mate work.
If a bus driver is injured, he does not go and sit on the back seat to look at his replacement.
And Grealish might have wished he had been subject to some sort of regulation forbidding him from entering Villa Park, such was the mediocrity running through most of this contest.
There were close shaves, for sure – three times involving the frame of the goal, which was struck by efforts from Ollie Watkins, Ezri Konsa and Coady.
But do not let those near misses con you into thinking this was a thrill-a-minute. It most certainly was not.
This is what you might have expected from a Wolves team treading water and a Villa side struggling for momentum.
If anything, Wolves looked the more likely to steal an undeserved win, but these two teams will not, on this evidence, be setting the remainder of the season alight.
Instead, for Smith, he needs to work out just how he can make this side more exciting and more threatening if – and when – he is forced to do without a certain player...either temporarily or permanently.
Smith needs to prove that Aston Villa are not The Jack Grealish Team.