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Opinion

John Carver was 4 points ahead of where Steve Bruce is now in that 2014/15 relegation near miss

4 years ago
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Back on 1 January 2015, John Carver drew his first game in charge (Newcastle 3 Burnley 3) to move NUFC up to 27 points from 20 games, two points ahead of Bruce’s 25 points from 20 games.

NUFC were in the top half at this point of both seasons.

Over the following seven games Carver’s performance was better than Bruce, so that after 27 games Carver’s NUFC (35) were four points better off than Bruce’s (31) are now.

It was at this point that John Carver started doing most harm, failing to pick up a single point in the following eight games:

You would hope Steve Bruce can do better than that but looking at the form table of the last nine games, if nothing changes, we’ll definitely struggle to reach 40 points.

Fortunate points picked up in this run (for example from Everton and Chelsea) will have to be found from somewhere again or things could get very tight.

The other concern is that clubs in the bottom three are picking up more points than clubs in 2015 too.

Back then Carver was 13 points clear of danger after 27 games and had a goal difference better than all of the bottom 6:

Today Newcastle are only seven points ahead of the danger zone and a couple of the bottom six have a better goal difference.

Far less wiggle room for those of us concerned about being caught, the longer performances fail to improve.

You can also keep in touch with all of Chris Holt’s blogs via NUFC Miscommunication, NUFC-Ashlies Blogspot

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