Rafa reveals the number of points NUFC will need in the next 12 games to ‘guarantee’ safety

Rafa Benitez believes we need another 15 points in our 12 remaining Premier League games this season, believing the 40 point mark will ‘guarantee’ safety – with him expecting ‘three or four’ sides to accumulate less than that between now and the end of the season.

It has been suggested by several fans that 37/38 points will be enough to beat the drop this season with so many teams in the mix and taking points off each other, however Rafa is sticking with the magical 40-point mark.

The trouble is, it will be extremely difficult for us to achieve such a tally when you look at our inability to win games in recent weeks tallied with our difficult fixtures.

Here’s what Rafa had to say:

“I think it will be 40 (points to survive). Why? Because you can see teams winning, losing or drawing,”

“But someone, any time, will have problems and then 40 points, I cannot see everybody over 40. Someone will have problems.

“I think three or four teams will be below 40, so 40 for me is a guarantee.”

We are currently averaging 0.96 points per game, with 25 points from 26 games so far, meaning we are currently on course for around 36/37 points if we kept this up.

An improvement is therefore clearly needed, but do you feel we can muster another 15 points (as Rafa aims to do) in these remaining 12 games?

A tough run. Unless we plan to pull off an upset against some of the big boys, it looks home wins vs Southampton, Huddersfield and West Brom could be key, with Bournemouth and Watford also presenting as good a opportunity as we’re going to get to add to our tally.

I’ve got a feeling this one could go to the wire. How many points do you think we’ll get from this lot and what total do you think will see us to safety?

(Fancy writing for us? Send any articles/ideas over to us at [email protected] & we’ll get back to you!)

About Olly Hawkins

As a Junior Magpie since birth and season ticket holder, I eat, sleep and breathe all things NUFC! Here at the blog, I aim to bring you news, views, match reports and transfer exclusives as and when I get them.

2 thoughts on “Rafa reveals the number of points NUFC will need in the next 12 games to ‘guarantee’ safety

  1. I’ll do the full monty in fenwicks window if we get to 40 points.
    No matter how you look at it, I just cant see us getting more than 37 and even that could require a freak result or two going in our favour.
    Here we are again at the business end of the season desperately scrabbling about looking for ‘just enough’ points for survival.
    Nothing ever changes under the fat controller does it. 👿

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  2. i honestly cant see us gettin another point! never mind 15! every one of those games is a potential defeat-in seasons gone and more-so now that we need sumit-if he hadnt of sold daryl murphy we wud be about 7/9 points better off by now im almost certain-aswell as playing mitro with his almost 1 in 2 goal ratio-stubborn rafa has got us in this position point blank refusing to budge-aswell as ashley being a gambling tightwad

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