How can you be lucky over 24 games?

So here we are, sitting pretty in 5th in the table, just a point behind Chelsea in 4th with two of our next three games being at St James' Park.

Naturally it's all down to luck and good fortune, you know two commodities that Newcastle United always benefit from!

Sarcasm aside, that is the perception from some pundits, presenters, ex-professionals, and even from some, just a tiny minority, of our own fans who are waiting for this bubble to burst and for something to go wrong, presumably just so they can say how right they were all along.

Now we all know we are weak in terms of cover at the back. It's been covered so many times now so I won't go over it again. Suffice to say that pretty much everyone is in agreement that we could have done with an extra defender in January and know that an injury in the wrong position could have a bad effect on our season. However that is an if or a but, and for this one I want to look at what has happened already rather than what may or may not happen in the final 14 league games of what could be a fantastic season for us.

As I said earlier, we are 5th in the league which is down to luck apparently. Now I'm pretty sure that it's impossible to be that lucky. Maybe over a run of a few games, but not over nigh on two thirds of the season. The premise of this 'luck' is because we aren't really playing well or thumping teams and are instead grinding out the results.

I don't see a problem with that. We've all been told for years that this is what "good" teams do so why is it any different for us? Look at the league, look at the usual suspects. None of them have been prolific yet they are all picking up the results in a very similar unspectacular fashion to ourselves. Of course teams have purple patches. Look at Manchester City at the start of the season. They pretty much thumped everyone put in front of them, but it didn't last.

The fact is that three points are three points, and if you keep picking them up then the league table will reflect that. We're fifth because we are the fifth best team in terms of getting results after 24 games. Not through luck, not through anything else in fact, other than our ability to get the job done!

Does anyone still think we've been lucky? Really? I mean on the odd occasion we've had a slice of luck, much in the same way that we've had luck desert us on occasion. It happens and it isn't out of the ordinary.

We're 5th because we deserve to be 5th!