It’s been a tough week for Newcastle United, where everything that could’ve gone wrong seemed to go wrong on or off the pitch.
A new week has arrived and it presents two opportunities; a chance to move back up to sixth tonight with a win at West Ham and Sunday’s Carabao Cup Final.
But before we tackle the first of two trips to London tonight, here is a summary of the weekend’s Premier League results; featuring very few that went in our favour and an updated league table.
After injuries to Lewis Hall and Sven Botman, Anthony Gordon’s three-game suspension and an FA Cup exit in added time the previous Sunday, it is no surprise to see results also went against us over the weekend!
The early kick-off on Saturday saw **Nottingham Forest** beat Man City 1-0, meaning the Reds are now up to 51pts and seven clear of Newcastle United.
Then came the 3pm kick-offs later that day, where **Brighton** (46pts) moved two above us thanks to a stoppage time win over Fulham, while **Aston Villa** (45pts) became the latest side to leapfrog us following a 1-0 win away to Brentford.
That left us in 8th on Saturday night, but Sunday saw us drop another place as **Bournemouth** (44pts) – who should’ve won at 2-0 up – came away from Tottenham with only a point in a 2-2 draw, leaving them level with us on points having played a game more.
Seeing the Cherries drop two points late on was good news from a Newcastle perspective, but another of yesterday’s 2pm kick-off saw **Chelsea** (49pts) edge out Leicester 1-0, seeing them move five clear as we ended the weekend in 9th.
The good news is a win tonight sends us bac up to sixth, four behind Forest, two off Chelsea and just one from Man City. It’s also worth noting we have two games in hand on Villa, as things stand.
That’s the aim, not just to boost our standing in the league, which suddenly looks a bit bleak after a weekend or bad results elsewhere, but to also hand the team a much-needed injection of belief and momentum ahead of Sunday’s final.
After a bruising week full of bad news and a weekend of results that’s seen us fall to ninth, hopefully tonight is the kickstart we need ahead of the run-in and Sunday’s trip to Wembley.
Howay the lads!