Rafa Benitez gave an interesting interview a couple of days ago to Sky Bet after he won the Manager of the Month award for October going five wins in five games.
He was asked a broad range of questions and one of them was whether the though Newcastle could beat the 106 points haul Reading had in the 2005-2006 season which is the record points total in the second division.
In that season under manager Steve Coppell they won 31 games and lost only two.
Rafa Benitez – we concentrate only on the next game
Newcastle have lost three games already this season, but all the other games in the league but one have been wins, so in 16 games we already have 12 wins – that’s a 75% win average in the league.
This is what Rafa said when asked if we could beat 106 points this season:
“No, I am sure that will be very difficult.” “Our idea is to approach every game like it is the most important.”
“It is about approaching one game at a time.”
“We are not thinking about points we are just thinking about taking one game at a time. That’s it.”
“We are playing with a lot of confidence but my idea is very clear.”
“We have to be sure we approach every game like the last one, and that is that it’s the most important.”
“We have to stop people thinking too much about points or doing this or that, it’s just the next game.”
“We have to be sure we are ready and that’s it.”
Newcastle have another tough round of game coming up once the International break is over.
We start with a game at sold-out Elland Road against Leeds United and then we play Blackburn and Nottingham Forest twice by January 2nd.
A good measurement to follow is how many point we are ahead in the automatic promotion stakes and currently we are 8 points ahead of 3rd placed Huddersfield and 9 points with goal difference taken into account.
We’d like that points gap to increase by January 2nd – as much as possible.
What do you think?
Comments welcome.
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