There’s a number of different ways of looking at Newcastle’s current dire and dangerous situation, which is 3rd bottom of the Premier League with just 12 games to go.
One way to say it is that Newcastle fans have been let down by all levels of the club this season.
Starting at the Newcastle Board and the owner to the playing staff who decide not to turn up for away games sometimes and to the coaching staff led by Steve McClaren who have had Newcastle in the bottom four all season long.
Steven Taylor and Seydou Doumbia in training
We hope things get better soon – but we’ve been saying that since the beginning of the season when we started off with three draws and five defeats in the first eight games.
And if the Board are reticent to fire a manager who clearly isn’t good enough we could be locked in a death spiral – which is what really worries us.
Steven Taylor is trying to get fit over in Spain and this is what he has said today on the Newcastle web-site:
“You can train as much as you want but for the lads who haven’t played in a while, they want to get game time and it’s a perfect opportunity against Lillestrom.”
“It’s been useful for the boys to come away to a different environment instead of being at the training ground all the time.” “That is good for us. It’s been hard work and now we’re looking forward to getting some game time.”
“I speak to a few players from different clubs and while several teams are away on training camps at the moment, there aren’t many that I know of who have trained as much as we have this week.”
“We’ve had double sessions, putting the graft and hard work in – because we need it, especially after the last game.” “We’ve got to put things right. We’ve looked over the game and we need to make sure that doesn’t happen again.”
“The next game against Stoke is a massive game for us. We are running out of games now so we need to pick the points up.”
“As players and staff, we know what we demand from each other. We’ve held meetings over here, just like we do all the time. We look at each game to see where we can improve and whether there’s anything we can do better.”
“For us now, it’s about taking all of that onto the football pitch and improving our away form because this season it hasn’t been good enough. We need to crack on and hopefully get the points on the table before it’s too late.”
“I think our wide players in particular will look to get a lot of joy against them.” “From the clips I’ve seen of them, they will try and counter but we’re going to try and take the game to them, see what they’re all about and see if they can deal with what we’ve got.”
The word from La Manga is that any player who is interviewed in Spain has to say it’s been hard work – so Steven passes that test in this interview and in fact he overdoes it a bit.
Double training sessions – so they only usually have one a day?
It looks like we are going to take the game to Stoke – well that’s the plan in any case – let’s hope we don’t over reach ourselves at the beginning, but if all our players are awake and alert when the whistle blows to start the game – that could be an advantage.
Comments welcome.
6 comments so far
Tsunki
Feb 20, 2016 at 12:11 PM
Comment #1Ashley Out!
Tsunki
Feb 20, 2016 at 12:12 PM
Comment #2All the games we have left are massive actually.
lochinvar
Feb 20, 2016 at 12:34 PM
Comment #3“We’re running out of games ”
Sherlock Holmes at is best
“Well deduced Watson , but in fact we’ve been running out of games since the first day of the season”
WWSBRD
Feb 20, 2016 at 1:03 PM
Comment #4Perez wide left and Townsend on the right I assume?
Big Archie
Feb 20, 2016 at 1:03 PM
Comment #5We need points?
No shit!
He’s watsed on the pitch – he should be in the board room!
lesh
Feb 20, 2016 at 1:18 PM
Comment #6If they stopped putting needless pressure on the players to spout the party line, it might just help them focus on what’s important – playing good, spirited football and concentrate on pulling together to win games!
And…..
If only Shearer would offer some one-to-one coaching for Mitro. The lad could only benefit from his vast experience and wisdom.
It’d be nice if the Club would try to re-build the bridge between itself and Shearer too but the Club’d have to make the first move.
Wouldn’t Shearer make one helluva ambassador (and Board member) for the Club – after all his public profile’s much bigger than Moncur’s.