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Opinion

May the odds be ever in your favour

8 years ago
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With every passing week, each game becomes even more of a ‘must win’ match.

However, when your team has won only five of 24 Premier League games so far, a bit of reality also comes into play.

Today is most definitely a must win game against West Brom, whereas you could term the following two matches at Chelsea and Stoke as ‘hope to win’ encounters. In fact anything at all from those two tough away trips would surely be seen as a massive bonus and any draw(s) a moral victory.

The trouble with Newcastle United and must win games, is that this season they haven’t been translated into points.

A sobering fact is that on only one occasion in these 24 games, have Newcastle United won when they were expected to.

The bookies made United favourites to beat Norwich back in October and they duly did, a manic topsy turvy open game producing a 6-2 victory with all six shots on target producing goals, whilst the Canaries hit the woodwork twice.

Whilst supporters and pundits alike, quite rightly point to Newcastle’s shocking away record as a big problem, the sad fact is that apart from that win against Norwich there have been only two other wins at St James Park. They came against Liverpool and West Ham, when the odds suggested that the visiting team were more likely to walk away with the three points.

It was the same situation when Newcastle United picked up wins at Spurs and even Bournemouth, the two home sides starting those games as favourites.

With Newcastle failing to beat even dismal rock bottom Aston Villa at home, you can’t be sure of anything these days.

However, what you may be confident of is that if Newcastle win the four remaining matches of the season when they will be favourites, then it would be probably 90% of the answer to our survival chances.

United have West Brom, Bournemouth, Sunderland and Swansea to face at St James Park, four wins with the first of those on Saturday could well make (or break) Newcastle’s survival a reality.

These are the must win games but do Newcastle have the right character to come through against the clubs that are sadly our rivals at this moment in time?

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