I’ll be surprised if both Newcastle and Man Utd suddenly show a consistency they haven’t shown all season. Both sides will drop points, more than once.
The challenge for us is to win all our games - that’s what will probably let us down but the opportunity is there.
I genuinely think they will lose tomorrow (today?!) but that after that they will somehow contrive to get exactly the points they need to remain in the league.
They’re a solid team with few weaknesses. That first phase of signings (that is bigger than most seem to appreciate, probably because of the unremarkable names it includes) has done very well to plug holes in their squad. The result is they defend very well. I think they have the best GA in the league. That tends to rule out the sort of collapses that see teams lose it from this position. You can still drop points with clean sheets, but means they’re not going to need to score many goals to get the points they need, and wont likely find themselves in positions in games where they’re being overly stretched.
Utd on the other hand…this is really where my last hope lies now, slim though may it be. And that starts tonight with a Mason led resurgence.
General consensus is that we’ve been pretty awful for large parts of the season.
Newcastle have won one more game than us.
They’re not the side that so many are gushing about.
I can see them doing an Arsenal between now and the end of the season.
I don’t, to be honest, because Howe has made them primarily a strong defensive side. They were lucky with injuries, to be honest, and when Wilson was absent, they were pretty fortunate to have been able to call up a 70-million pounds striker from the bench.
I only hope that this is not something like 2003 when it was reported that Abramovich bought Chelsea partially because they managed to get CL football at our expense and attract all those players he then bought.