Newcastle’s next 10 – Three big opportunities between now and December

When club football returns this weekend, Newcastle will be straight back into a busy schedule.

Alongside weekend games in the Premier League, with Brighton, Fulham and West Ham to come in our next three, we’ll have midweek matches in the Champions League and Carabao Cup to come in between.

We headed into the international break with momentum after back-to-back wins against Union SG (4-0) and Nottingham Forest (2-0), but the next six weeks could go a long way towards shaping our season in league, cup and Europe.

See our next 10 games below between now and December:

1. Brighton (A) – Premier League
2. Benfica (H) – Champions League
3. Fulham (H) – Premier League
4. Tottenham (H) – Carabao Cup
5. West Ham (A) – Premier League
6. Athletic Bilbao (H) – Champions League
7. Brentford (A) – Premier League
8. Man City (H) – Premier League
9. Marseille (A) – Champions League
10. Everton (A) – Premier League

For me, this set of fixtures represents three big opportunities.

Starting in the league, four of our next six games are against sides in the bottom half of the league in West Ham (19th), Brentford (16th), Fulham (14th) and Brighton (12th), giving us an opportunity to push ourselves up the table now our 2-0 win over Forest leaves us 11th and only three points off the top six.

The second opportunity comes in the Champions League, where we have back-to-back home games against Benfica and Athletic Bilbao – two games we must attack – followed by a trip to Marseille next month. While none of these games are easy by any stretch, it’s a winnable run in our European campaign before tough trips to Bayer Leverkusen and PSG.

Last but certainly not least, sandwiched in between winnable league games against Fulham (H) and West Ham (A) is a chance to make the quarter-finals of the Carabao Cup, with Spurs standing in our way on Wednesday 29th October.

It won’t be plain sailing, but a strong return over the next 10 games and progress in all three competitions will be key as we hope to head into December on a high.