Newcastle United Fan View: Huddersfield clash is a must-win game

Newcastle United take on Huddersfield this weekend in yet another “must win” clash. The game comes off the back of an enforced three-week break from football, partly down to Newcastle United’s early exit from the FA Cup but there was also the dreaded international break thrown in for good measure too.

Thankfully for Newcastle, most players involved with their national teams have come back unscathed with the exception of Matt Ritchie, although he is thought to be ok for Saturday’s match.

The break also allowed Islam Slimani to link up with his Algerian national side, coming on for the final 25 minutes in their friendly game earlier this week.

MATCH CENTRE: Newcastle v Huddersfield

Whilst it is doubtful that Slimani will come straight in to the starting eleven on Saturday, it is pleasing to know he will likely make the bench.

Huddersfield on the other hand, have suffered with injuries during the break with their main man Aaron Mooy returning injured from playing with Australia. I can’t emphasise how important Mooy is to their side, he is a top class player, a player we were strongly linked with during the summer and a player that scored the only goal of the game when we played Huddersfield away back at the start of the season. He will be a big miss so I am hoping reports stating he will be injured for the Newcastle game are accurate.

We can’t take Huddersfield lightly though and we only have to look at last season to know how dangerous they are. When Huddersfield arrived at St. James’ Park last season they were very much an unknown entity – we were new to the Championship league and most fans, myself included, expected a walkover. This turned out not to be the case and they went on to win the game 2-1. Huddersfield are incredibly organised, they will play right until the final whistle and, like us, they are fighting for Premier League lives; at this end of the season, every team is dangerous (apart from Southampton who were atrocious of course!).

A win for Newcastle will take us up to 35 points and potentially above Brighton who have a tricky home game against Leicester City. A loss will take Huddersfield above us and with Palace, West Ham and Swansea just a couple of points below us and all playing on Saturday, we could end the weekend just a place above the relegation zone.

There has been a huge amount of positivity around the club over the last month and it is important that we win on Saturday to keep this feeling around the place. I have said it before but Newcastle fans are very reactive and a loss coupled with a few games going against us could really bring the storm clouds back to Tyneside. A loss will be terrible but a loss certainly won’t signal a guaranteed relegation but we should of course be looking at Huddersfield as a side that we should beat. The positivity is of course down to an up turn in form; since the end of January we have played 6 matches and only lost once (Liverpool). We have drawn 3 (Burnley, Bournemouth and Crystal Palace) and won 2 (Southampton and Manchester United). A win tomorrow will not see us safe yet but it does bring us closer to the 38 point mark that, in my opinion anyway, will see us safe.

As for the side to face Huddersfield, I suspect there will be no changes from the home 3-0 victory over Southampton 3 weeks ago. Dubravka will continue in goal with Yedlin, Lascelles, Lejeune and Dummett at the back. In midfield we will likely see a centre pairing of Diame (world’s greated defensive midfielder) and Shelvey with Kenedy and presumably Ritchie if he is passed fit, on the wings. Atsu will no doubt deputise should Ritchie not be passed fit. Up front I would imagine Gayle will keep his place with Perez as the “number 10”. Lets face it, there isn’t too much tinkering that can be done at this stage of the season and the 11 players above have performed superbly well recently and deserve to keep their place.

As a prediction I am going for an incredibly nervy 1-0 to Newcastle United. It is important for us to score first and I would like to see us attack Huddersfield from the off in the same way as we did against Southampton. Sitting back and absorbing the pressure is a sure fire way of us losing.