If there’s any lesson that Newcastle fans have learned over the last few weeks, is that we often can’t rely on other teams to deliver when we need them to the most.
And after the final Saturday of this season’s Premier League, we now have a clearer idea of what’s needed from the lads ahead of our crunch game against Chelsea at St James’ Park.
Here’s how the race for Champions League football is shaping up after some big results in the Premier League today…
For Eddie Howe’s Newcastle, the day finished just as it started, in 4th place and only ahead of Chelsea by virtue of having scored more goals than the Blues so far this season (66 vs 62).
Saturday 3pm’s delivered a shock result as already-relegated Southampton held Manchester City to a 0-0 draw at St Mary’s, preventing Pep Guardiola’s side from opening up a four point gap between themselves in 3rd and us in 4th.
But our dream for Bournemouth to produce a similar result against Aston Villa failed to come true, as Ollie Watkins’ opener in added time of the first half proved to be the decisive winner in a 1-0 away victory.
Villa’s win means the top seven teams are officially locked in for this season, and Nottingham Forest have now been pushed down into 7th place, with Unai Emery’s men moving up into 6th. See the updated table below:
Forest have an interesting task ahead of them on Sunday, as they host Leicester City. We can only hope that another of the league’s bottom three teams can do us a favour and snatch at least a point at the City Ground.
It may sound cliche and over-repetitive, but our game against Chelsea this weekend is one of the biggest league games we’ve had in years, up there with both Carabao Cup finals and European football fixtures.
A win is imperative. It would take us up to 66 points: up to 3rd, one clear of City, three clear of Chelsea and Villa, and four clear of Forest before they kick off at 2:15pm on Sunday.
A draw or defeat would make things a lot more difficult for us. Considering we have Arsenal as our second-to-last game, and then an Everton side who pulled off a strong away win at Craven Cottage on Saturday, we will want to get the business done as quickly as possible.
Chelsea only played a couple of starters in their recent Conference League semi-final win, so head into Sunday with a rest team. However, us being at home is perhaps the biggest advantage of all ahead of tomorrow’s 12pm kick-off.
When we played at St James’ Park in the league last season, it looked like men against boys as we won 4-1. And it was a 2-0 win at home that saw us through to the quarter-finals of the Carabao Cup back in October.
HWTL!