We will have a Rafa Benitez press conference early this afternoon, and it looks like we are in good shape as far as injuries go.
Jonjo Shelvey, Christian Atsu, and Matt Ritchie are all on Physioroom.com as having slight injuries but are expected to play on Sunday.
Rafa has been working hard in the two-week International break on the players he has available, and it’s another important game on Saturday at Southampton, followed by a home game against bottom of the league Crystal Palace.
Palace have no goals and no points in their seven games, and we will be expected to win that game.
Joselu – keep calm and pick up the points
But if we can finally win at St. Mary’s on Sunday afternoon that will be an excellent 3 points for us.
Spanish striker Joselu is expected to start up front again and lead the line, and he’s clear when he talks about what Newcastle have to do this season.
This is what he has said in the Chronicle:
“You have to be calm. It’s only seven games. The league has too far to go.”
“We try to just take every game as it comes because if you start thinking about what may happen in three or four months: you never know.”
“It’s impossible to predict where we will finish so we just try to work every week to win the next game and then we will see.”
“We think we can get better as the season goes on, but I can’t predict where we will finish this season.”
“Maybe you will lose five games in a row, maybe you will win seven in a row.”
“The Premier League is an unpredictable league and the squads in the league are very good – it’s difficult to pick up wins in this league.”
“We try to work hard every single day and we try to just pick up as many points as we can.”
“We know that we can win games, we know that we will lose games so we just have to remain calm and keep working hard.”
Joselu is basically saying there that we have to keep calm and pick up the points.
That’s precisely what we need to do, and we cannot get carried away too much on the upside or downside as far as the results go.
Well – maybe just a little if we start putting together another winning streak.
🙂
After all, we have to enjoy wins when they come.
Howay The Lads!!
Comments welcome.
1 comment so far
Jib
Oct 13, 2017 at 7:56 AM
Comment #1Southampton away this Sunday will not be as straight forward as
some are thinking
Their manager Mauricio Pellegrino played , and then coached
, under Rafa at Liverpool (as will Gamez with us I’m sure).
Benitez then took MP with him to assist with coaching at
Inter Milan.
The Soton manager should have quite an insight into Rafa’s
footballing nous
An intriguing game in prospect