[Jimbuna]

A fair and balanced piece on the TOON

It seems the conventional wisdom on Newcastle right now is that we have good players, we are playing some good football and we have a good team – we just need to gel and then the results (wins) will come – no problem.

Here´s a contrarian view to that.

We had a great victory at home to Norwich when we won 6-2 – but that was touch and go until the last 30 minutes after it was 3-2 and Norwich had been pressing for the equalizer in the seocnd half.

So we keep hearing that Newcastle are getting better and we will be OK in the league – but there are too many times when we fall short in a game and get nothing out it.

The three red cards in the first half against Swansea, Arsenal and Sunderland meant we were beaten in all three games and didn´t manage to score a goal.

The Sunderland game – we were the better side – but still managed to lose it 3-0.

We have put in some good performances this season at home to the Saints, Arsenal and Chelsea and we got just 2 points from those games.

We allowed late equalizing goals against Southampton and Chelsea and that cost us 4 points and we played well against Arsenal to lose only 1-0, but we had Mitrovic sent off after 16 minutes.

Who beats Arsenal with 10 men?

At some point this season we have to start winning some games on a regular basis.

Results then become more important than the performances.

Steve McClaren has concentrated on the performances so far and he says the performances will produce the results and that he doesn´t want to look at the league table.

Would he have wanted to look at the league table if we were in the top four at the moment?

We have 6 points from 10 games which is our second worst start to a season ever – and we have to go back to 1898 to find the only worse start than that to a season.

That´s when we had four draws from the first 10 games, but then we won the 11th game when we hammered Liverpool at home 3-0 – so 7 points from the first 11 games.

The game at home to Stoke City on Saturday is crucial and we wonder what will crop up in that game that could prevent us from winning it?

Newcastle need wins and the results have to start taking precedence soon.

We will be a lot happier when we can get some of those Ws on the board – hopefully in the next few games.

Until then playing well and losing for whatever reason gets a little bit boring – and frustrating too.

http://www.nufcblog.com/2015/10/27/w...op-doing-this/