Newcastle were due to play Manchester City at home on  Sunday 28th February but with City reaching the final of the League Cup by beating Everton 3-1 that game will have to be rescheduled and therefore we will have time on our hands after playing at Chelsea on 13th February and having to face Stoke City at the Britannia Stadium on March 2nd.

Manchester City will play Liverpool in the final after the Reds scraped past Stoke City on penalties.

Steve McClaren – will have chance to integrate new players into the team

Here is the current schedule of our remaining 15 league games, the results of which will ultimately decide whether we get relegated this season:

February
Wed 03	19:45	A	Everton	 			
Sat 06	15:00	H	WBA	 			
Sat 13	17:30	A	Chelsea	 			
Sun 28	12:00	H	Manchester City	 	
March
Wed 02	19:45	A	Stoke City	 		
Sat 05	15:00	H	Bournemouth	 	
Mon 14	20:00	A	Leicester City	 		
Sun 20	13:30	H	Sunderland	 			
April
Sat 02	15:00	A	Norwich City	 			
Sat 09	15:00	A	Southampton 	
Sat 16	15:00	H	Swansea City	 			
Sat 23	15:00	A	Liverpool	 			
Sat 30	15:00	H	Crystal Palace	 		
May
Sat 07	15:00	A	Aston Villa	 			
Sun 15	15:00	H	Tottenham	

Newcastle are already out of the FA Cup, which means we also have a free weekend on February 20th.

The extra time will allow for at least a couple of things beneficial to Newcastle.

• It will give Steve McClaren and the coaching staff time to integrate our new players into the side and how he wants the new Newcastle to play.
• It will also give time for any injuries we pick up to start clearing up so hopefully we can field near our strongest side in a lot of the remaining fixtures.

There will also be intense pressure on Steve McClaren to show with the new reinforcements coming in he can start getting some results from the next three games.

If he cannot then owner Mike Ashley may start thinking about possibly bringing in a  replacement like David Moyes, but it would be best if  Steve can start getting results.

If we do badly in the next three games, we will remain near the bottom of the league table which would not be good for morale at all, but if we can can pick up some points against Everton, West Brom and Chelsea we could be on our way.

Here’s hoping for the latter scenario.

What do you think?

Comments welcome.