Unpredictable, scared and spiralling out of control... Newcastle players need to find some fight before they crash land in the Championship
TODAY is D-day for the four clubs still battling to avoid the final relegation place – with Fulham at Aston Villa, Brighton at Manchester United, Newcastle hosting Tottenham and Burnley travelling to Southampton.
There isn’t an easy game among them for those in the mire.
And, on the back of this season’s hectic schedule – and an international break – the difference between success and failure in the run-in will COLLY depend as much on bottle, spine and passion as it does on talent. At this stage of the season, it’s all about the fight.
So, with that in mind, here’s my verdict not on who’ll go down – even I’m not sticking my neck on the line for that at this stage – but on which of the clubs is best prepared for the battle that’s about to ensue…
BURNLEY have bottle in abundance, a manager in Sean Dyche who trades on his teams being physical, a solid dressing-room and reliability.
BOTTLE TO SURVIVE – 9/10
As for FULHAM, they started like a soft, wet sponge.
They conceded goals for fun and were down with the dead men not so long ago with seemingly no way out.
Credit to Scott Parker, though, he made changes and it worked.
They started looking more like a Premier League team and did extremely well to get themselves into a competitive position again.
That said, they have managed just one win in their last five outings and are struggling to score goals, something that will make a few in the
dressing-room edgy. And I’m not convinced there’s enough there to stop the rot in eight high-tension games.
BOTTLE TO SURVIVE – 6/10
Like Fulham, BRIGHTON are poor at scoring multiple goals in a game.
Indeed, they’ve only done it three times in their last 13, so they have to dig in for a battle if they’re going to survive.
They will be relying heavily on Lewis Dunk and Adam Lallana’s experience to get them through.
BOTTLE TO SURVIVE – 6/10
So Premier League clubs spent nearly £300million on agents’ fees during should be bailed out by the public because if that’s what they spend, and
And then there’s NEWCASTLE,A team that, in terms of pure talent and squad depth, should be booking their summer holidays and turning up to training knowing that they’re safe.
But the hallmark of Mike Ashley’s Newcastle is their unpredictability and they are staring down the barrel of the Championship just a year on from talk of them becoming the world’s wealthiest club.
There are two big questions for them now.
Does Steve Bruce have the stomach for the fight? Maybe. Do the players?
Well, judging by their performance at Brighton, it doesn’t look like it. They looked scared, anxious and like they were spiralling out of control.
And, based on what I saw then, I can only say…
BOTTLE TO SURVIVE – 1/10.
There won’t be a Newcastle fan who doesn’t agree with me on that.
The big issue for the Magpies is that they won’t have expected to be in this position. Fulham, Sheffield United, West Brom, Brighton and even Burnley to a degree will have started the season telling themselves,
“If we don’t give it our all from the first game to the last, then we might get dragged in”.
You’re ready for the battle when it comes.
But if you’re a club expecting to be around mid-table at this stage of the season – which Newcastle would have been – and you then find yourselves going into the last eight or nine games battling relegation, you are not prepared.
And all of a sudden you find yourself thinking, “Damn, this is real”.
When that happens, players can find they don’t have the mental and physical skills set to deal with it.
Newcastle have to start showing that isn’t the case – from today against
Tottenham.
the pandemic despite some of them pleading poverty, using furlough and sacking mascots. Never let it be said again that clubs what they spend it on when people are struggling to hold on to jobs and homes, then football has no moral right to ask us to help.