JOHNGIBSON Cut out scenes like this soon...

. . OR BRACE YOURSELF FOR RETURN OF DERBY GAMES

HERE is a sobering thought: If Newcastle are not careful and Sunderland are Tyne-Wear derbies will be back next season.

That prospect is becoming a distinct possibility with every passing game for two clubs poles apart.

United’s repeated failure to win in the Premier League and Sunderland’s drive through the lowlands of League One have raised an unexpected prospect.

Yet we don’t want it next season. No way bonny lad! Such a return of extra-special games, derby confrontations of passionate local pride, must be reserved for the Premier League.

So United must do something about protecting what they have because facts and figures are stacking up against them.

The Magpies’ shocking start to a new season - their worst since way, way back 120 years ago in 1899 - should worry us to death. Why?

Before this season 11 clubs had started without a win in their first 10 games and only three of them went on to avoid relegation.

While Everton (1994-95), Blackburn (1996-97) and Derby (2000-01) made it eight out of 11 didn’t - Swindon (1993-94), Manchester City (1995-96), Norwich (2004-5) Watford (2006-07), QPR and Reading (2012-13), Burnley (2014-15) and Sunderland (2016-17). Get the message?

Further shuddering facts are played five, lost five. What sort of home record is that?

A shocker for a team backed by 50,000 fans desperate for Newcastle to represent them with honour, passion, and pride.

Home is supposed to be where the heart is and if that is so three of United’s next four games offer the opportunity to right a dreadful wrong.

It is Watford at home next, then Bournemouth and finally West Ham. A trio of matches which at first glance would appear more than capable of bringing the Magpies their first victory of the season. Except Watford and Bournemouth are punching above their weight just as Newcastle are punching way beneath theirs.

Of course, when you have gone 10 league matches without ever standing on top of the rostrum every hurdle Before this season 11 clubs had started without a win in their first 10 games and only three of them went on to avoid relegation It could be Ayoze Perez versus Lee Cattermole again in the Championship next season if United do not get a win soon. Above, Jamaal Lascelles and Mo Diame after the Brighton home defeat looks like Becher’s Brook. Watford, though, carry a health warning.

They are seventh top of the most competitive league in the world, having won six of their 10 matches.

They reside above Manchester United, above Everton, above Leicester, Burnley and West Ham.

The Watford gap between them and us is a gigantic 16 points, which tells you everything.

Just to run salt into a gaping wound both Watford and Bournemouth, once basement dwellers in the bottom tier of the Football League, play the sort of attractive, attacking football which if reproduced in the black and white of Newcastle United would have Geordies drooling.

Painfully goal-shy, United are still waiting for Salomon Rondon to come to the party and it is into November.

His Premier match stats are three starts, two subs appearances, no goals, no 90 minutes completed. Will we get an hour and a half here? I doubt it. Will we get a goal? I pray.

Talking of turning up in troubled times, United possess but two everpresents. One is the excellent Martin Dubravka but who is the other? Not Jamaal Lascelles, Matt Ritchie, or DeAndre Yedlin but Mo Diame, who has seen off challenges from Ki and Isaac Hayden without hitting anything like last season’s form.

I only wish Diame would recall his stupendous strike at Wembley which catapulted Hull City into the top flight and replicate it any time he likes!

Somebody has to step up to the plate and deliver goals otherwise Tyne-Wear derbies will be back sooner than we anticipated - and that is not Champion!