by Durhamfootman » Wed Jan 03, 2024 4:40 pm
start of December and Newcastle had just beaten Arsenal and Chelsea and been robbed by VAR in Paris and were sitting comfortably in 5th place, possibly in a CL position. 4 weeks later and if they don't win their next game (Man City) will probably be in the bottom half of the table. Yes there have been a lot of questionable decisions, but I'm sanguine that they haven't really deserved to win the games they've lost. They've been poor the last few games, had one of their fairly common lean spells in front of goal, but (unlike last year) have conceded a lot of very poor goals. Yes they had an extraordinary number of matches, but those matches included 4 teams in the bottom quarter of the league and they lost to 3 of them. The sheer number of injuries have shown the lightness of squad depth, but that can only change very gradually, so January becomes a key month... 3 matches only, unless they make it to round 4 of the cup and the first opportunity in weeks for the squad to get a little bit of rest and to actually work on things in training instead of just the match, recovery, match, recovery cycle they've been on for about 2 months. The lack of training ground work has been very obvious in the last 4 weeks. They need a striker in this window....desperately, but then they needed one desperately in the summer and didn't secure one, because the policy is to only sign the right players and they won't splash out on over-priced players
I'm certain that the club won't suddenly panic after a short bad spell at the end of a 2 year period of over-achievement, but it's well known that the owners have long been admirers of bloody Mourinho, and I have this nagging fear that Howe's position may come under threat. I like the way Howe plays football (even if it is a bit naive at times) and i hate the desperately negative way Mourinho plays it. Still... Howe must have a lot of credit in the bank, but they do need to start winning matches again, sharpish
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