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Newcastle United eyes now hopefully looking at Craven Cottage and Hawthorns tonight

3 years ago
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Newcastle United, what a football club…

Timeline – Thursday 4 March 2021 at 6pm.

My Newcastle United eyes now having to look hopefully at Craven Cottage and The Hawthorns in a few hours time.

Like the rest of you I have seen plenty of bad times, however, these are very unnecessary bad times.

Newcastle United are a club so rotten right the way through, with Mike Ashley, Lee Charnley and Steve Bruce an absolute shambles.

Forcing out a top manager who had been completely starved of funds and actually made a profit on player trading in his three years, then bringing in a Championship clown and allowing a net spend of over £100m on new signings.

This complete and utter incompetence meaning that I now am forced to be looking and hoping for salvation from Fulham and to an extent West Brom, at 6pm this evening.

I was there in Rotterdam in November 2002 and vividly recall waiting on news of how Juventus had got on in Kiev, to see if our dramatic 3-2 win against Feyenoord would be enough to see us qualify from the opening group stage.

I was inside St James Park in May 1997, it seems like only yesterday, Newcastle beating Forest 5-0 on the final day, the fans waiting after the final whistle for the Liverpool and Arsenal results to be read out, to see if we had once again finished second in the table and this time qualified for the Champions League.

Glorious times and what celebrations when those results above came through.

Now I am waiting for 6pm to flick between Fulham and West Brom matches played inside empty stadiums in March 2021, to see what Newcastle’s chances of survival will look like…

Living the dream.

At 6pm it is West Brom v Everton and Fulham v Tottenham. This is how the Premier League table looks ahead of the Thursday matches, with Sheffield United having beat Villa last night and Burnley drawing with Leicester:

As you can see, Fulham will swap places with Newcastle United if Scott Parker’s team win tonight. Whilst with a win against Everton, it would mean West Brom then going to within three points of Newcastle if beating Steve Bruce’s team on Sunday.

These are all the matches the bottom six clubs have in March, before the international fortnight at the end of the month:

Burnley – Arsenal (H), Everton (A)

Brighton – Leicester (H), Southampton (A), Newcastle (H)

Newcastle United – West Brom (A), Villa (H), Brighton (A)

Fulham – Spurs (H), Liverpool (A), Man City (H), Leeds (A)

West Brom – Everton (H), Newcastle (H), Crystal Palace (A)

Sheff Utd – Southampton (H), Leicester (A)

These are the 15 match form lines for all six clubs, going back these last three months or so:

Burnley – Won 5, Drawn 4, Lost 6, Points 19 Goals For 13 Goals Against 17

Brighton – Won 3, Drawn 7, Lost 5, Points 16 Goals For 11 Goals Against 15

Newcastle United – Won 2, Drawn 3, Lost 10, Points 9 Goals For 13 Goals Against 28

Fulham – Won 2, Drawn 10, Lost 3, Points 16 Goals For 10 Goals Against 11

West Brom – Won 2, Drawn 5, Lost 8, Points 11 Goals For 12 Goals Against 32

Sheff Utd – Won 4, Drawn 1, Lost 10, Points 13 Goals For 11 Goals Against 22

A number of things jump out at you from the above…

The past three months nobody has ‘accumulated’ so few points as Newcastle United.

Nobody has lost more than the ten matches Steve Bruce and his team have been defeated in.

None of the six score many goals, ranging between nine and thirteen.

However, Newcastle and West Brom’s defensive records are appalling, conceding far more goals than the rest.

You have to appreciate as well, these 15 match runs above, cover the majority of the season, with only 11 games played previous in the opening months.

This appalling Newcastle United form is no flash in the pan, it is almost half a season’s worth now.

The big question now is, can NUFC turn it around?

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