On a day where Anthony Joshua battles to become IBF World Champion and Newcastle should have been fighting for their Premiership lives, The Magpies simply threw the towel in on what has been a season well and truly on the ropes.
Southampton were a class above a desperately beleaguered Newcastle side who were never in the contest after gifting their hosts an early lead. Newcastle left huge gaps in their defence and were unable to hurt Southampton in the early stages and only really ever landed one telling blow in Townsend’s left pile driver. With Newcastle already well behind it was nothing more than a momentary glimpse of attacking prowess. It certainly couldn’t provide a Rocky Balboa style win against the odds.
All hopes of survival now seem to be lost as Newcastle now only have six games remaining to get out of this mess. The damage was already done well before Rafa Benitez was appointed but even his arrival seems to have added nothing to Newcastle’s hopeless cause. This performance was no better than anything under McClaren, Carver or Pardew and realistically Newcastle are simply on their knees waiting to be counted out as they fall way behind on points.
Never mind Rocky, Newcastle need a miracle to stay up. It is still possible of course but on this evidence it is hard to see anything other than relegation. As 33/1 Rule The World won the National, Newcastle are odds on to be playing in the Championship next season unless something drastic happens.
P.S. A thought for those 1700 Newcastle fans who made a 660 mile round trip to that shambles and back. Newcastle didn’t deserve anything from the game…you did!
Stu – that’s what happens when you ‘balance the books’ and ‘build for the future’.
How much has actually been spent on strengthening the youth system – recruiting better players, improving the coaching, improving the feeding process from youth to first team.
Oh, and there’s a small question over these new training facilities as well of course?! 😕
Sharpy17(Quote)
Well let the fans watch the video before the game to get them fired up but I really don’t think the players need to see it before the game.
Stuart79(Quote)
Stu – Maybe it would be a timely reminder of who they are playing for.
Those boys would have spent a fortune to go to New Zealand to watch those players in a tin pot pre season tournament – and ultimately paid for it with their lives.
We are Newcastle UNITED and the players should grieve with the fans IMO.
Sharpy17(Quote)
Sharpy, I’m with you on this, it would be a timely reminder of how important the club is to it’s fans, how far they were prepared to go to support them. It may even make them realise that working hard for 90 plus minutes is a piece of cake compared to what those families have had to endure.
kimtoon(Quote)
They don’t need reminding what happened. I really cannot see how that would do any good. They need to focus on the football, not some emotional video. It might get the fans ‘going’ and then in turn they might create a great atmopshere and ultimately that’s what the players will feed off, not what they saw half an hour before the game. It could even effect some of the players in a bad way. It’s a no from me as I doubt it would do any tangible good.
Stuart79(Quote)
Stu, The fans been getting behind them all season and it’s had no effect to date. Just look at the Villa players, they have had the villa fans on their back pretty much all season so our lot have got off lightly.
kimtoon(Quote)
Stu – I could understand that if we were on a winning streak and didn’t want anything to distract from that.
The reality is that they should have been focusing on the football for the last 32 games – but that hasn’t really worked out all that well.
As for it working in a bad way – it couldn’t get much worse really.
But your opinion mate, and the club have decided against it anyway so it’s irrelevant now.
Sharpy17(Quote)
So the board have been found guilty of mismanagement of Jonas, and instead of an apology they are going to speak to the legal team and assess their options?!.
Have these snakes got no integrity at all.
Sharpy17(Quote)
Wolves have got a young, quick defence that I would swap ours for right now. Mid-table championship here we come.
DJG(Quote)
So I’m going for a 2-1 win tomorrow.
Stuart79(Quote)
The tribunal board have now twice found in favour of NUFC employees.
Theit findings have been damning in regards to the integrity of the board.
KK and now JG have shown them to be liars.
Albeit the board staff have changed, the boss remains the same and he sets the standards.
The same boss who is being heavily criticised for treating his employees of SD with practices considered distasteful.
There’s no end to Ashleys contemptible behaviour. 😥
Troy Stavers(Quote)
Troy – that’s the thing for me though mate – 2 tribunals, 2 sets of board members. Ashley just continues to employ people who don’t know what they are doing.
KK & Jonas have had the guts to take the club on, but I bet people like Pardew & Benny could well have an employment case against the club as well.
Ashley has to be held accountable.
Sharpy17(Quote)
We desperately need a draw in the Norwich v Scum game today and then a win for us.
If Norwich win and we loose, I know it’s not mathematically over, but I don’t see us making up the points to catch them personally.
Sharpy17(Quote)
Ashley is accountable. Cheap tat rubbish all the way from SD to his appointments at SJP. Charnley’s statements at the JG tribunal were beyond belief and Ashley appointed him saying find a new manager and here’s £70m to spend. Every single fan would have told him we needed an experienced striker and centre half so he spent £20m on two foreign 20 year olds. Rubbish from top to bottom is the Ashley way.
Defeat today seems most likely and the end of all these ‘we can do it’ cries.
Georgio(Quote)
Sharpy – painful as it is we need the scum to win today.
Georgio(Quote)
If we were confident of picking up 4 wins we would like a Sunderland win today and keep Norwich well in our sights – especially with a win today. Although we can’t trust the players to do that so a draw will be the best result for us. A Norwich victory would be bad for us obviously but I still think if we get to 37 points we will stay up.
Stuart79(Quote)
With our defence we’ll do well to get 30 points never mind 37.
Sharpy17(Quote)
Afternoon everybody. First of all we got nothing to lose now. We go out do our best with a very below par team. If Swansea win who gives a ****. This is Mike Ashley’s team at the end of the day.
Terry(Quote)
New article from SRF guys – https://www.nufcblog.co.uk/2016/04/16/duo-ruled-out-for-key-clash/
I will also post a match thread in a bit
Andy The Magpie(Quote)