I would have never considered that Newcastle would be sitting on 31 points in 14th place after the International Break. As Kevin as pointed out in his Moving On .. post Newcastle needed to get at least 10 points from the Chapter 1. So what does Newcastle do? We proceed to get 13 points of a possible 15 points and then win the make-up game to Southampton. So we are now the magical 5 points from 36 points which would probably get us to safety. I think we have solidified our chances of staying up with games against Norwich & Burnley still left on our schedule but nothing can be taken for granted. Our last game against Everton showed us that this team can’t set itself on auto pilot and get a win. Just the contrary. We fell into the same problems we showed prior to the winning streak began and the International break came at a great time for our team. They got to spend time in sunny Qatar and work to refocus the team for the final run to the end of the season.
So, what should we expect from this team as the season rolls on and our schedule becomes increasingly more difficult and we enter into Chapter 2 & 3 of our stretch run. We have already lost to Chelsea in a well played game and now we get to look forward to Tottenham on Sunday. This game should be interesting because the Spurs are one of the most unpredictable teams in the EPL. They have so much talent and right not Conte appears to have them playing their best football to date. It will be difficult to get any points from this fixture but we can hope. That is our hope for every game but now with the goal closer than we could have imagined what other expectations should we have. These are the ones I am looking to expect.
- Beat Norwich and Burnley
- Continue to play positive aggressive football
- Get Trippier and Wilson back by the Leicester game
- Continue to develop the midfield partnerships
- Beat 2 of the Top 6 teams. (Preferably Man U and Spurs)
- Ignore transfer rumors.
That’s all I want. It’s not too much to ask for.
HWTL
The Newcastle Review 