The cost of Newcastle's home form.

Newcastle United find themselves in a strange situation as they approach the final few weeks of the season.

Realistically safe but with only a very slim, outside chance of Europe, there is a chance that our season could go stale with nothing really to play for other than pride. Now the fact that we are all but safe with ten games left is very good, but there is still a feeling that it could have been even better. On the road we have been excellent, in fact we have been better on the road this season than we have at any point in the last few years, but it's on home turf that we have struggled so far this season.

Our away form is up there with the top five in the league, in fact exactly half of our points have come away from St James' Park this season. In contrast though, our home form is near the bottom of the pile with the likes of West Ham United, Blackpool and Wigan. It can be improved today of course, but imagine if it was already better?

I know it's pointless looking back, but look at the defeats against Blackpool, Stoke, Blackburn, even the draw that we scraped against Wigan. If those results had been different then we would have been in the driving seat for the top six rather just trying to get there. I know it's impossible to have perfect home form, but even if we claimed just an extra win and a draw from those games and we would have been on 40 points right now.

Our home form can still improve from now until the end of the season of course, but it's still a shame that we slipped up earlier on in the campaign. I don't mean to piss on anyone's chips, but the fact is that we are realistically playing for nothing but pride because our home form is only the 17th best in the league.

And for Newcastle, that isn't good enough!