Newcastle United midfielder Alan Smith thinks Newcastle can be competitive next season, back in the Premier League.
Alan Smith – Newcastle can be competitive
Newcastle won the Championship title last season by a massive 11 points and and Smith hopes they can use that as a springboard forward next season.
Smith told BBC Newcastle today:
“We’ll go in there confident and winning the Championship breeds confidence,””We’ve got to maintain that confidence as long as possible.”
“The first 10 games of any Premier League season are vital to see how you’ll stand.”
“Say Hull a few years ago, they were flying at the start of the season, and it gave them that chance to drop off, you don’t ever want to be chasing points.”
We’re surprised Alan brings up the Hull City case, because that was their first season in the PL, and they finished one point ahead of Newcastle in 4th bottom place, with a much worse goal difference, so Newcastle were relegated.
Surely Alan knows that was the case, and it was only last season that Hull finally ended up where they deserved – back in the Championship.
We don’t want to be too hard on Hull, but they were never good enough for the PL, and it’s to Newcastle’s shame that Hull beat them to 4th bottom spot that season – we were so hopeless, and yet we had all those highly paid stars.
But they seemed more interested in counting their money , rather than earning it – and that was only one of the problems we had in that awful season.
But enough of that – we’re starting to get depressed again.
Comments welcome.
Written from Plymouth, England.
8 comments so far
Doha Mag
Jul 17, 2010 at 9:55 AM
Comment #1We need a few signings and a mid table finish in the PL is possible. We may struggle without a class striker and back up defender, full back, and winger….
jimiley
Jul 17, 2010 at 10:48 AM
Comment #2Dohamag,
Looks like we will struggle then because we will not sign all those players. Maybe four 15 year olds!!! It is a reality check when Smudger talks about us and Hull in the same context. No great expectations except survival.
Sav
Jul 17, 2010 at 12:31 PM
Comment #3Look, we need to get some Geordie heads out of the ‘we deserve this’ and ‘that club deserves that’. You are where you are and you deal with it because that is where you deserve to be. We are back in the Prem because we beat some Championship teams and are now, literally, in a different league. We’ve played no team it this league for 15 months when we proved we weren’t good enough. When Hull were winning every week, they deserved to be where they were. I hope we can do as well as that this season but we’ve got it all to prove – and we’ll need more than gritted teeth and clenched fists to survive.
Enough talk.
Can Ashley, Hughton, and the squad we begin the season with, walk the walk?
geordieal
Jul 17, 2010 at 12:58 PM
Comment #4The reason he brings up hull is because in their first season and their first 10 games, they were on fire, although their next 28 games the stuttered badly, because of the platform they had built they were able to survive, although at our expense ( just ), am I Reading this wrong, he just means if we get off to a good start then we can go on from there, just hope we can keep up and finish mid table.
armchairtiger
Jul 17, 2010 at 1:18 PM
Comment #5Hull finally ended up where they deserved? This attitude got you relegated in the first place!
Either you have Alzheimers or a very short memory?
Didn’t we take a few points off you and knock you out of a cup? Best of luck – you should write for a tabloid with your writing ability 🙂
Tigerman
Jul 17, 2010 at 2:14 PM
Comment #6Dont be too hard on Hull..?
Remember that ‘poor’ Hull City team played Newcastle four times during 2008/09
2 wins and 2 draws would suggest that the best team stayed up.. it was nae fluke.
Ta much
Solaidback
Jul 17, 2010 at 4:04 PM
Comment #7The difference between when Hull went up & us going up into the PL this season is, Hull were an unknown quantity to PL clubs, so they didn’t know how to play against Hull but once they found out, Hull started to suffer…. us on the other hand having been in the PL for 16 season are not an unknown for other PL teams, so we’ll not get that good a run from the start unless our players knuckle down & play football, not try to out do other teams, just play the game & chase the ball, work hard & try & dig out results, that way we should win against the majority of the other teams & hopefully pull off a few shock results too…
The way I look at it is from past seasons, we’ve got 6 points in the bag against teams like the Muckems, Spurts, Wet Spams, Brummies, WBA, Blackpool, Rovers, Stoke, Wolves, Wigan & Bolton, so that gives us at least 66 points right away 🙂
Some may think that I was joking when I say the Spurts but if you look at past seasons, apart from our last season in the PL, we only lost 1 games in 5 season against them home & away, so we’re there boogie team, they can’t play against us, so even if we only get draws away, we’re still on course to get a decent points tally if the boys dig in & get a result for us 🙂
lewman
Jul 17, 2010 at 4:26 PM
Comment #8is that not including our last season in the pl but not including the cup