Can NUFC be the best of the rest?

toonsy

Can this lot be the best of the rest?
Newcastle’s 2-1 win over Everton on Saturday extended their unbeaten league run this season and yet again disproved the opinions of many who thought we might come unstuck against the Toffees.

United currently sit in 3rd place in the league, with over a quarter of the season behind us. The so-called pundits have tipped our unbeaten streak to come to an end for weeks now, but so far we have proved them all wrong. The question is though, just how far can Newcastle go?

For a few weeks now, people have beginning to sit up and take notice of Newcastle. Our early season form surprised many, but led to most suggesting we ‘hadn’t played anyone yet’. Despite this being highly insulting to the teams we have played, I feel it is incorrect.

Last season Newcastle finished 12th; teams that finished around us included Stoke, West Brom, Sunderland, Fulham and Everton. So far from those teams we have beaten all of these, except West Brom who were are yet to play. For me it doesn’t matter that we haven’t played ‘anyone’ as the teams we need to beat are the ones who were in and around us last year. If we do this, which we have, then it shows a marked improvement on last year, and can only point to a higher finishing position come May.

What is also interesting is that had we played the same fixtures last year as this, we would still be searching for our first win, illustrating our improvement may be more marked than some pundits say.

Since our win over Stoke last week, the experts have started to take note. Stoke hadn’t lost at the Britannia all season, so for Newcastle to go there and win so comfortably was a warning to others to take United seriously. People are now beginning to wonder if we could finish in the top four, having occupied a Champions League spot for five or six weeks.

For me, Newcastle won’t finish fourth. I don’t want to put a dampener on it, but we simply don’t have as much strength in depth that the bigger teams have. Take City for example. Their bench for the 6-1 annihilation of rivals United was as follows:

Costel Pantilimon, Pablo Zabaleta, Aleksandar Kolarov, Kolo Toure, Samir Nasri, Nigel De Jong, Edin Dzeko

Apart from ‘keeper Pantilimon, and perhaps Zabaleta, I would argue that all five of the other players would walk into every team in the league. It’s the same for the other teams at the right end of the League. Chelsea, Manchester United and Tottenham all arguably have enough quality players to field two or three teams capable of doing well in the Premier League. Newcastle don’t really have this luxury. An injury to someone such as Demba Ba, or Fabricio Coloccini and very suddenly our team is heavily weakened.

I do feel however, that Newcastle can be the best of the rest. Take off say, both Manchester clubs and Chelsea, and I feel Newcastle can finish in the chasing pack or slightly behind them, with the likes of Liverpool, Arsenal and Spurs. Anywhere between 4th and 8th is a realistic aim for us. Even if you say that the ‘big 6’ mentioned finish above us, that leaves us in 7th; hardly a bad position.

If we are to do that, we need to beat the teams below us, which is when the suggestion that we haven’t played anyone is again shown to be untrue. Assuming finishing in the Champions League positions is beyond us, then the teams we need to be beating to finish between 5th and 8th are the teams who will finish 8th downwards, ie; Stoke, Fulham, Everton, Sunderland, Villa, Blackburn, Wolves, Wigan, QPR; all of whom we have taken points off.

If you look at it that way, we have played ‘someone’. We have played the most important games. Those sort of teams will also get beaten more often than not against the likes of Man City, Man United and Chelsea, so even if we do lose our first game at Manchester City, it doesn’t matter too much. We aren’t competing against City, we are competing against the teams who will be the best of the rest, who hopefully come May, we will be leading.

Thanks to Ben Johnson for sending this one in. He’s hoping to become a regular contributor so I’m sure you’ll all join me in welcoming him on board.

About toonsy

A lifelong Newcastle fan and current webmaster of this very 'blog who has the sole aim of creating a place by Newcastle United fans, for Newcastle United fans.

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80 thoughts on “Can NUFC be the best of the rest?”

  1. Ben – How Dare You!

    A week of fan fuelled negativity and you write a positive blog like this!

    Shame on you fella 😆

    To be even having this conversation just shows how far we have come.

    My red bus is almost finished its structural repairs, time to put some shine on…

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  2. Agree with Stardust, the fact we can write things like this show how far we’ve come.

    We still have all three promoted teams to play at home as well, no easy games I know but games you’d think we would pick points up in.

    Good article by the way Ben!

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  4. If a player (Scott flinders) gets a straight red in a cup game does that result in a suspension for league games and the reserve keeper (our kid) getting a bit of a run?

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  5. Newcastle won’t finish any higher than 8th. I watched the Everton game,and I was not impressed. Newcastle were second best for most of the game; against a team who have struggled all season, they only came away with the points due to poor refereeing,against better team they’ll get creamed (don’t mention Arsenal, you played them at the right time).

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  6. I keep saying this and i’m suprised no one else has. Our first target by Pardew was forty points, which he probably expected we’d get in March of April but there is a strong possibility of getting it before the new year. ❓ ❓

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  8. Looks like ‘Arry’s in trouble then:

    OliverKayTimes Oliver Kay
    There you go RT @Pearcesport: Reporting restrictions lifted. Harry Redknapp faces trial on Jan 23 on 2 charges of cheating public revenue
    1 hour ago

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  9. Is it right that if we win three more games we’ll be level on points with the amount we got when we got relegated ❓

    I don’t know whether to laugh or cry with that stat 😆

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  11. Pablobrown – isn’t that what the top teams do? Win badly when needed?

    I think we’ll end up between 6th and 8th, but only because we haven’t quite got the depth yet to put out a good team AND bench once injuries hit. That’s the next stage; something for next season.

    Right now I’m just happy to be surprised each week that we’re still up there. If we can get something out of the next three matches (2 points would be good going) then we’ll still be up among the gooduns.

    Spuds are the dark horses this year; I think they’ll be ahead of Chelski at the end of the season.

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  13. Ben welcome to the nut house and good article 😉 , your right some are starting to take notice of us. But there is still lots that arn’t funny enough Lawro is one of the real culprits and before when we were in 4th he only ever wanted to talk about the top 3, but I watched this week and the conversation was about us and said that we had done well to be in the top 4 ? but then Didi Haman had to correct him by saying that we were doing well and even better that we were 3rd.

    Pablo we didn’t play that well but there was noway we were second best, I suggest you try vision express or get a colour tv 😉

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  16. If ‘Arry gets done for this no way will he be England manager. Problem is I can see the FA come knocking on Pardew’s door if things keep going well at the Toon

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  17. Andy, another one; we already have the same amount of wins this season as we did the whole of the relegated season 😆 🙄

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  18. 3hourswasted….you know how these things work, you can be pretty sure that old floppy chops won’t get done for tax evasion, and he will ultimately become the England manager. 👿

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  19. Any of the “big six” can go out in January and spend £50m to solve a problem, we wont. The best of the rest is therefore 7th.

    Having said that I think that we are handily placed if say Liverpool fail to perform, in which case 6th is possible. I can’t at the moment see anyone else catching us, but they might so 6th – 8th for me. More importantly I set 55+ points this year as a conservative target with 60pts as a high line. I think we will stuff that to be honest.

    Our bench barring injuries would be Elliott, Santon, Williamson, Guthrie, Marveaux, Ben Arfa & Shola, which to be fair is pretty good. With the youth coming through there are only a couple of places where the squad is thin.

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  20. Good article Ben – puts our great start into perspective 😀 I got 16/1 at the start of the season for us to finish 7th so would be well happy with that or higher. If we can stay clear of injuries and get a couple in in January then it’s certainly achievable.

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  22. I remember at the start of the season we were 2000/1 at winning the league, I then saw around about a month ago we were 500/1 :mrgreen: Not that our position goes to my head or anything. 😀

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  24. @stardust

    Your views are not worthy of comments but I will anyway.

    You horrible little pug nosed creep. 😯

    You don’t even go to SJP so your uneducated views are ****. 😛

    Now find the nearest mirror and repeat the following until it sinks in;

    I AM A PUG NOSED CREEP AND MY VIEWS ARE ****. 😛

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  25. It has taken 2 yrs for them to realise that the @SJP advertising opportunity was going to sell.

    Will they abandon the idea if in 2 yrs the new opportunity fails and no investor is forth coming or will SDA keep getting free advertising. ? 😯

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  26. Can’t wait to see Messi .

    He is playing isn’t he? I’ve just heard the radio and he wasn’t mentioned in the line up.

    Is he on the bench?

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  31. I don’t understand why milner deserve a start at flank. 😕

    And looking at the spain bench members just give me the **** in the pants. 😆

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  32. OllieHoltMirror Oliver Holt
    England doing okay. In the way that a rabbit would be doing ok if he tiptoed quarter of way through a field of foxes without being eaten
    2 minutes ago

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  35. Alright lads, back from an open day 😀

    Great article Ben, I think we can be best of the rest. Pardew has installed a very good mentality in the team and you would have to say that at the moment we have truly shown to the others around us that we are laying down a marker to them

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  36. @ #19

    What has £50mill of Torres given Chelsea in return? 😆

    If we keep up the good form then we should expect 3, maybe 4 players in. And with the quality we get from our “cheap” signings these days we’ll me fighting till the bitter end, but very likely loose out on the CL places by 10 points. Lets just hope that’s enough for UEFA cup.

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  39. Lets face it lads and lasses we are not third for nothing , ok we have rode our luck a bit in a couple of games , but even that breeds confidence and this team are up for it . Under Sir Bobby we qualified for the CL against a lot of outsiders expectations and i see it happening again . We are 6 points ahead of Arsenal and Liverpool who have spent a lot more money than we have , but we have scouted better than them and the pressure is mounting on those 2 teams more than us because of the money they have spent . Lets not forget that the big 6 will take points off each other aswell and although we will have to have big performances to get anything out of the manchester games , no team will be looking forward to coming to SJP when we are in the form we are in . This team on its day can beat any team in the prem at SJP with 50,000 geordies making a noise . I am loving the fact we are in the mix but we are in the mix because we have quality throughout the team and a manager that knows how to manage . Lets enjoy and start believing 4 place this season is on .

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  43. Best of the rest?

    I thought selling the naming rights to the stadium was supposed to put us on a level playing field with Man City? Well according Dekka anyway 🙄

    Ahh that’s right, £10 million a season will make f**k all difference to our league position.

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  46. Just tuned back in. I’ve been away for 3 hrs.

    It certainly wasn’t wasted 😛

    Dave, if they had played Messi and Ronaldo we would have been stuffed . They must be injured. 😛

    Over to you 3hrswasted 😛

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  47. Yeah your right Troy I was trying to find out why they weren’t playing but cant find owt 😕
    Ben meant to say earlier anywhere above 8th will do me

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  48. I did the rest of the season using the premier league predictor and Newcastle won the league, and Liverpool, Aston Villa and Sunderland got relegated.

    I admit there may have been an small element of bias in the results, but it made me happy for a while.

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  51. @toonsy

    We did well to contain them tactically. (sounds like the toon nowadays). But they had some cracking chances to score.

    Again like the toon, a win is a win, and congrats to the manager for getting the tactics right.

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  59. @55 Seems to of turned him self around a bit like, life can be a **** to all of us, just hope i never end up in that state!

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  63. spence but gazza still taking his tablets 😉 hes just replacing the drink with summit else ,mark my words he will not stay off the drink 😉

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  65. Barry, I’ve known enough people that get to the stage of Gazza’s substance abuse. And you right mate, once there’s that much damage to the brain… There’s no going back the only thing that will change there ways is an inevitable early death… Sad but true.

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  68. Nee where mate! Loads and Loads of work, oh and ive been playing a lot of football for some reason 😆

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  73. Gazza is still on the edge no doubt.

    He still doesn’t show much remorse for beating up Sheryl and for that there is no excuse.

    He’s clearly on prescription drugs but I really hope he can stay off the drink.

    He does look gay and wonder if he’s fighting that?

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  74. Channel 5 now. UFC ! Rampage v bones jnr.

    Greatest spectae ever apart from watching the Toon!

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