Wat an important game this will be for Magpies
WATFORD would not automatically be viewed as a big fixture by Premier League standards but, boy, it is to Newcastle United right now.
Defeat must be avoided at all costs on the morrow. Victory gained if at all possible.
Because reputations are on line and a third successive defeat is no way to head towards a season’s end.
Especially not with Spurs and Chelsea to come.
No, this is not an ordinary end-ofseason fixture to be played out amid indifference, safety having already been guaranteed. This is a reputation-defining 90 minutes.
Nothing to play for? Martin Dubravka needs to clinch a permanent move while Jonjo Shelvey can be viewed long term as a champ or the chump some would like to label him.
Mo Diame must prove he is worth another contract, Ayoze Perez and Dwight Gayle are fighting it out to be United’s top scorer albeit with a shabby total - and Kenedy has only two matches left this season to cement his potential to Chelsea or whoever. Jamaal Lascelles, meanwhile, has a burgeoning reputation as the brightest of young Premier League skippers to protect. Need we go on? Overseeing it all will be the knowing eye of Rafa Benitez, who can be chillingly ruthless when necessary. Turn four victories on the spin into four successive defeats and the landscape will look very different. Let it also be realised for a lot of players currently at SJP there is only one way to go if jettisoned and that is down.
It is tough to beat a PL club with regular gates of 52,000 outside of the Big Six which regularly battles for Champions League qualification.
This looks like the best opportunity (not the only one) to gain another victory during the run-in so the challenge has been thrown down - don’t waste what you have created. Don’t tarnish what you polished.
Watford’s points-gathering has been poor of late.
They have not won any of their last seven Premier League matches and goals have dried up too.
A word of warning, though - their performances have been better than their results.
United owe them one, of course, having been cuffed 3-0 up here in November when in the middle of a shocking run which brought one paltry point out of 27. Revenge is required.
We are still looking to find a better all-round striker than Dwight Gayle despite two plunges into the transfer market.
Islam Slimani’s loan has one way or another been an absolute disaster.
His contribution has been nil and so the search for a goalscorer goes on while United’s threematch run-in to the season’s end sees him sitting on the sidelines again, this time banned instead of injured. While Dubravka and Kenedy’s January loans have inspired Geordies, Slimani has appeared as often as the midnight sun over the Swing Bridge. In a land of giants like Alan Shearer, SuperMac, and Wor Jackie the Algerian will be bracketed with Xisco, Albert Luque and Frank Pingel in terms of impact (they all managed to score by the way). The Watford gap is three points, the distance they are behind us. Let’s increase it!