40 points to ensure safety.
I actually remember Newcastle hater and sexist tosser Andy Gray saying at the beginning of the season that he ‘worried for Newcastle.’ He said he thought the club would struggle because they hadn’t spent much money on new players and have come back up with many of the players who took the club down in the first place.
To be fair Gray also predicted that West Brom would have the strongest season out the 3 promoted clubs. Well the Midlands Club find themselves in a rather unhealthy position in the league and are very much flirting with relegation currently. Got that one wrong eh Andy? But this isn’t about WBA or Andy Gray, It’s very much about Newcastle’s current position.
Europe has been a word on the lips of a few people as of late. Why not eh? The team seems to be pulling in the right direction on the field and on our day give anyone a game. But if we approach the situation with a bit of realism we all know survival is the first port of call. It was the target set for the season, before a ball was kicked the aim was 17th place and anything better would be a pleasant bonus.
We sit 9th on 36 points which isn’t bad going at all. They say the magic number is 40 to ensure safety, although I’ve heard a couple of players mention 42 as the total they believe to the number to aim for. Let’s just say 42 is the number to (probably) keep us up then we are only 2 wins away with 10 games still to play.
We have heard Jose Enrique say he wants to ensure safety before he is willing to discuss a new contract and now suggestions that Joey Barton now wants to wait until the summer as well. I think cementing our place in this league for next season will be a huge weight off everyone’s mind. That’s an obvious statement, but so very true. It feels the lads have done 99% percent of the job and now we just have finish it off in the next few weeks if possible.
Whether or not the players mentioned above have any real intention of staying, who knows? But what I do know is top flight football will be a necessity as a bare minimum to both. I think we are safe to be honest, but the sooner we can get to 40-42 points I’ll feel even better.
I try not to dwell on the negatives but I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about how it would have been if we held on against Spurs and Sunderland. Of course we conceded injury time equalisers in both games which consequently cost us 4 more points. Which would have had us on 40 points at this stage and seen us in 6th place, but let’s face it when do Newcastle ever do it the easy way?
This season has provided many highs, some excellent results, brilliant performances and it looks as if we can get a top half finish should we be able to duplicate some of our best form. Top 7 would be a dream but I haven’t forgotten how I said I would be delighted with survival alone, I’m not a fickle man and I stand by that statement.
Everton at St James’ is next up, a team who we beat in their yard earlier in the season with a memorable Ben Arfa goal being the difference between the two sides that day. Three points against The Toffees would be a very welcome step closer to Premier League survival. As I keep saying the sooner we hit 40 the better in my opinion.
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45 and where laughing
I just want us to finish above the scum, which we quite easily can. We have to beat Everton on Saturday, we need to start turning these draws into wins.
Our next handful of games are all games where we should be winning.
We are in a good position Mark and like you much better than expected. 40 points is within reach very soon hopefully. The sooner we get there the sooner we can start firming up deals for the summer (keeping players and bringing new ones in). Looks like talks may already have started with Lille for Gervinho and no doubt there are others that we can start to get serious about once we are definitely safe.
The sooner we bring in one or two new players in the summer the more likely we can hold onto what we have.
We’ll stay up no problem, but I think we need to remember what our goals were at the start of the season. It was just to stay up.
Football has a habit of kicking you in the balls. As soon as we start talking about Europe we drop points at home – typical!
Talking about Enrique – fck I’ll be amazed if we keep hold of him. He’s starting to look like a Gareth Bale clone especially going forward, and what do Spurs value Bale at? £60m?
I wouldn’t sell him for less than £20m.
Jose will have a year left on his deal though soon, we’ll be lucky to get £10m.
areet stu ,are you the same guy who used to go on com ?
aye- the rumoured jose fee is 6ish aint it, disgusting.
stuart- oh yeah we’ll stay up, just hitting the magic 40-42 will be a relief and were obv not that far away.
Ryan – Yes.
Someone was on here on Friday saying that losing Enrique wouldn’t be such a blow because he’s a left back. He gives us so much going forward that he will be a massive blow to us.
If I had to pick who I’d rather keep out of Jose and Barton I would have to go with Barton. You can’t replace what Joey brings to the team for me.
If Jose left I would go for Taiwo who’s on a free in the summer, with Ben coming back next season gap of Jose will be filled going forward down the the left.
Let’s get the points in the bag and banish any talk of relegation before we start any talk of europe. Yesterday we missed another opportunity, and Everton won’t be a cake walk either…
Regarding Jose Enrique…this guy holds ALL the cards unfortunately. If Gareth Bale is worth 60 million…which he isn’t of course, that’s just Spurs talking up his worth, then what is Jose worth ? 20 – 30 million in todays crazy prices ?…
Assuming that Jose isn’t doing a sneaky, and has a move sorted out already, then it’s all down to contract renegotiation in the summer, and how much MA will pay him ? …Tough call really…if you were in MA’s shoes what would you do ?….!…the player is duty bound to earn as much as possible…loyalty….hmm…we’ll see…
with the situation regarding jose and his contract, we’d be lucky to get around 6mil, these day the contract length has more influence of the price of a player. kranjar had a year left on his deal when he went to tottenham and was quoted to be worth about 10 mil, but only went for 1 because he only had less than a year on his deal.
if it does come to the point were we are going to sell Jose because he doesn’t want to sign a new contract then hopefully, we could hold out for a bit more closer to what he is worth, like 10mil, but i think this may be very hard.
“Agent – no Nasri deal yet”…..
Now here is an interesting conundrum. What on earth does this statement say, and who in fact do the various web sites serve by reporting the fact that “Charlie Macbumfluff from Fulchester Rovers has 1 year left on his contract”…. Seriously…it pees me off big time ! The only person that it serves is the player, and the player doesn’t need to have the fact highlighted on “www.numbnuts.com”…..to get himself an extra 20K per week…or what ?…
At the same time, this type of headline can only iritate the supporters of that particular club, and to a certain extent alienate certain supporters against there own player….
Maybe I’m having a caffeine rush, but this kind of crap really irritates me…if I didn’t love the toon so much, I’d stop reading web pages in the summer recess, and during the January transfer window….but I need my toon fix. The rest of this contract negotiation crap…forgetaboutit…. oh for the days when the star centre forward earned ten quid more than the punters…
aye two wins and I reckon we’re safe, just hope we get them asap and can kick on from there.
Got to play Chelsea, Liverpool and Man U remember so we don’t want to leaving it too late. But I just want to finish above Sunderland if i’m honest. And AndrewNUFC, sorry but saying “our next handful of games are all games where we should be winning” is a crazy thing to say, if this season has shown us something is that anyone can beat anyone, there is no such thing as ‘winnable games’.
The poo mill that is Twitter is reporting interest for Gutierres from Citeh
6th is a reasonable aim, Liverpool are hardly a top four side any longer (currently getting beaten by west ham) likely to be between ourselves, bolten, mackems and scousers – not sure I would swap many toon players with any one in those teams with obvious exception of gerrard
Saying that a bad run and any of those teams including us could be dragged into relegation fight
We’ve also got HBA, gosling and strolla to come back for the run in
I would take Johnson for Guti like!
See West Ham are beating the eat eaters! 2 good goals, Scott Parker bossing the match. Think we taught him not to bottle tackles.
West Ham 2-0 up over liverpool….Wolves thrashing Blackpool yesterday after the same Blackpool beat spurs 3-1 in their last game…The PL is just plain strange this season. Can’t these teams just get relegated and save us all fearing the drop
A twitter rumour and Ed Harrison has an article on it….what a joke. The guy does my tits in
Liverpool are under the cosh like. WH doing really well. Hope rein leaves for Champs League footy
I think the sooner we hit 40 the better we will do I know it sounds obvious but I think a lot of our players will loosen up and kick on a bit once they know that what happened 2 seasons ago isn’t happening again.
Moreno Dr Ed run’s articles on allsorts
Could have done with West Ham winning, but I guess if we are serious about getting into europe its a good result.
Yeah stuart agree with you.
Aye dave I know but it annoys me that one of our own fans links our players away from us at every given opportunity
Ryan good to see ye back again mate
that’s quite astonishing, dirk kuyt blasted the ball off wayne bridge’s head, with the ball going high in to the stands and the ref and lines man, a few foot away, give a thrown in to West Ham!
Must be great day for the Birmingham fans like, annoyes me the way we went out.
Always next season!
couldn’t give a shit about either cup really, don’t have the squad to compete in three competitions. I have no doubt that if we progressed in either, or both, cups, we wouldn’t be in the league position we are in.
I would love a day out to wembley me like.
Who’s going to Stoke then?
Aye jamie im going, you got tickets?
Good old Jay hows it going, whats the craic bonny Lad
yeah am going to stoke, shud be good
I’m back. What have I missed?
I’ll be at Stoke aswell
have you enjoyed the toon,apart from draw like TOONSY,didnt get drunk did we
Ice – Sober as a judge mate. The mrs wants to move up there now
you mean she has more class than you then
Get yourself a season ticket toonsy.
Andrew – If I moved I would, no doubt. I couldn’t justify it at the minute as it costs £100+ in petrol for every trip back home. I just haven’t go that kind of cash to be honest.
Ice – I’ve got a load of pics that I took. I’ll put some up later. I took her to Whitley Bay this morning and took her up by the lighthouse. That’s when she said she could live here
Rich, how much for your house?
TOONSY my lad will do a good deal for you,walks in county,15min to sjp,what more could a man want
toonsy didnt ya take her winkle pickin on st marys island
area could be a snobby for you like
Batty – We did go up there, but no winkle picking this time. I did have a look though
Ice – I was surprised at how low house prices are up in Newcastle still. Mind you, I’m only an hour from London so that tends to inflate the price down here
toonsy didnt ya nip in the briar dean for a qick pint
AYE 150 grand for 4×4 cupboard doon there
Batty – I’m sure it’s closed down? It looked like it anyway?
Ice – Aye. With this new job though I’ll be able to get a transfer as there is jobs in the NE
Part of the masterplan you see
toonsy years ago wen a was a kid we always used too walk doon tynemouth to catch the toon players training on the beach
closed doon
BATTY once wired-up a couple of jute-boxs in there for that landlord in there,many moons ago,said they fell off a wagon
dog 50 ,thats it then it must of burnt doon
Burnt down
toonsy if you sell up you will be able too buy 5 hooses doon north shields
slag
howay dog we all know your colour blind
oba comin on
Batty – I reckon I’d get £130,000 for my house at the minute. I’m looking at roughly what i could get for that up in Newcastle
toonsy a 1 bedroom flat doon whitley ,or a 6 bedroom hoose doon shields
therses only two colours isnt there,black.white
or if ya move where dog lives in the snobby area you could buy a front door
Or a cardboard box down the quayside
I bet I could buy the entire Bigg Market for that
Or do the sensible thing and move to cullurcoats smack bang in the middle.
martins scores
Martins scores 2-1 in last minute
Martins scores the winner
Come on Arsenal
What a balls up by the Arsenal goalkeeper and defender though
well wor al went for brum like,so got to be reet
toonsy fck europe for this season i want too see the gooners cry ,(agen )
wengers face is class
LMAO. i knew Martins will score the winner.
Batty – I’m not thinking of Europe mate. I’m thinking of my tosspot mate who supports Birmingham and always gives it the biggun
cry gooners cry
toonsy 73 well chin him then he wont give it the bigun
I always rmb,when martins play for us,he seems to always score against arsenal.
New thread up anyway
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