Fourth from bottom will do: NUFC 2010/11 preview
Seventeeth place. Fourth from bottom. That’ll do nicely. If Newcastle United avoid relegation from the Premier League this season, it’ll be a big achievement, and a vital step towards putting the club back on solid footing in the top flight. It won’t be easy, and many bookies and media pundits have tipped the club to go down. But the Magpies are no strangers to proving people wrong.
The club surprised many and most last season by winning the Championship at a canter. Having been tipped to ‘do a Leeds United’, it was a remarkable turnaround after the pitiful Premier League relegation season. Chris Hughton and the players deserve lots of credit for the way they regrouped, knuckled down, and ground out results. It wasn’t pretty, but it was effective. A similar approach will be vital if Premier League survival is to be achieved. But even that might not be enough.
Perhaps even more surprising than the success found on the pitch has been the stability found off it. There have been remarkably few media circuses or PR disasters at St James’ Park of late, and the name of Newcastle United has been pretty much absent from the Sky Sports breaking news ticker. Chris Hughton has been accepted as a decent, hardworking bloke who deserves to be given a chance, and his lack of interest in generating soundbites has actually been refreshing.
There has even been a truce of sorts declared between the fans and Mike Ashley. There have been grumbles about the lack of investment in players, and Ashley and pals haven’t been spotted wearing black and white stripes in the Bigg Market for a while, but the general opinion seems to have settled down to one of ‘better the devil you know’.
Expectation among the fans remain realistic. Survival is the aim. Let’s not kid ourselves – the Championship that Newcastle bossed last season was a poor league. The lack of quality was evident in every game. Saturday’s Premier League opening day fixture in which top flight champions Chelsea thrashed second flight runners up West Brom 6-0 clearly highlighted the gulf in class between the two leagues.
The main worry is that Newcastle return to the Premier League with a squad that is, on paper, just as weak as the one that was relegated last time around. There have been few additions, and several players who thrived in the Championship might well have done so because they had ‘found their level’.
Dan Gosling looks like a good prospect, but he’s injured for the long term. James Perch rarely stood out in an average Nottingham Forest team, and Sol Campbell hardly fits NUFC’s stated transfer policy of recruiting promising youngsters.
Of the signings made last term, Leon Best failed to score in 13 appearances. (Hardly a prolific striker, Best only scored 19 times in 92 appearances for Coventry City.) Mike Williamson is untried at the top level, and Wayne Routledge has flattered to deceive at numerous other clubs.
Among the players that remain from the relegation season, the deficiencies are well known. Last season, Kevin Nolan was one of the best players in the Championship. In the previous season, he was one of the worst in the Premier League. Two years older and certainly no quicker, can the influential club captain make the grade on a return to the top flight?
Can Andy Carroll continue to provide the goals that helped propel the club into the Premier League? Which Fabricio Coloccini will turn up – the commanding powerhouse from the promotion season, or the error-prone softie from the relegation season? Can Jose Enrique avoid injury? Can Joey Barton avoid trouble? Will Jonas Gutierrez learn to cross a ball? Whither the lesser-spotted Xisco? These, and, many more questions will be answered over the next few months.
Last season, West Ham finished fourth from bottom with 34 points. In the previous season, Newcastle were relegated with the same total. So let’s take 35 points as a bare minimum for survival. That’s 9 wins and 8 draws, or a similar combination.
There are at least ten mediocre teams in the ‘best league in the world’ (West Brom, Blackpool, Wigan, Wolves, Bolton, West Ham, Stoke, Birmingham, Blackburn, Sunderland…), and they’re all likely to be beating each other on a weekly basis. The trick for Newcastle United will be to beat all of them at home and at least draw with all of them away. That’ll generate 40 points, and pretty much guarantee staying up.
In some ways, tonight’s opening fixture against Manchester United at Old Trafford represents the best possible start to the season. Whatever the result, it will leave the players, the manager, and the owner, in no doubt about the challenges that lie ahead.
As always with Newcastle United, what follows will be entirely unpredictable. Who wouldn’t be looking forward to that?
