Newcastle United Fan View: Magpies remain on course after navigating promotion hurdles

I recently wrote an article about the run of fixtures coming up for Newcastle United and how avoiding defeat is a must. Since then, we’ve played Wolverhampton Wanderers and Norwich City in two away games and avoided defeat, taking 4 points along the way; by no means a bad return from two potentially tricky away games. We now face a football-free weekend before facing “made-up media rivals” Aston Villa on Monday night in front of the Sky TV cameras.

It will be an interesting few days of football coming up. Brighton have the chance to regain top spot when they face Barnsley away on Saturday so I will be hoping Adam Armstrong can do us a favour in that one and I have a sneaky feeling he might. Huddersfield and Reading, the other two main contenders for promotion face each other on Tuesday night, a cancelled out draw would be good.

I think this is genuinely the first time this season that I have started to look out for other teams’ fixtures and results. I’ve enjoyed this season immensely so far, just focusing on Newcastle United and no one else and whilst I’ve been aware of the teams around us, I’ve just had the mindset of as long as we keep winning, we’ll be fine! So far so good.

Our form has been good all season – we are averaging just over 2 points every game and if this continues it should be enough for promotion, if not the title – the easy way to put it is win the home games, draw the away games. The form of the other teams around us has been a little bit better over the last couple of weeks so the gap has closed though and that is why avoiding defeat is important, especially when we play the teams around us. I am still confident we will win the league though; we have the better squad, the better talent and the better manager and whilst I respect the other teams around us – especially Brighton – I think we have enough to keep going until May. The next month is going to be a massive test though; we face all of our rivals away from home but we can only focus on the game ahead and next up is Aston Villa on Monday night.

I made a tongue in cheek comment about the “media rivalry” of the two sides above but there probably is a little bit more to it than that. It’s a fairly new thing that started in 2009 when we were relegated from the Premier League the first time round. The game that sealed it was the final game of the season at Villa Park but we all know – much like last season – it wasn’t one game that put us down, it was the 37 games prior to that. Much has been made of the SOB ON THE TYNE and the ANT or DEC MESSIAH banners that the Villa fans made and fair play to them; we’re a big club and the fact that we were on our way down means we are prime targets for abuse. Over the last few years Newcastle United and Aston Villa have followed a similar path, both big clubs, both under achieving, both relegated, both spending millions, both with owners that the fans have protested against – but things are different now, very, very different.

Newcastle United operate at a different level to Aston Villa these days. We have a world-class manager, they have Steve Bruce. We have top class players, a team that the fans are fully behind and everything right now is pretty damn good. They have an owner who tweets a photo of The Expendables and tags Sylvester Stallone in to it with the tagline “We are a team” – seriously, get a cuppa, sit back and check out some of the replies from the Villa fans!

We are top of the league, they are… you know what, I have no idea – they aren’t even on my radar – but lets check – 16th! So despite spending more money than Newcastle United this season, they are 15 places below us and only 7 points away from the relegation zone. How the mighty have fallen. Villa haven’t won in 2017. Lets say that again, Aston Villa haven’t won a game of football in 2017 and we’re in the middle of February now. Their last victory came on Boxing Day against Burton Albion.

The reverse fixture at Villa Park in September finished 1-1; Villa deservedly equalising a few minutes from the end of the game following a bit of a flap from Matz Sels but we are a different team now. We are stronger, more confident and more comfortable playing with each other. We have a bit more fight about us and belief that we are true title contenders. We should beat them on Monday, we should annihilate them to be fair but this is a banana skin game if ever there was one. We’re in front of the TV cameras and we need to win, end of story. A good performance would be a bonus but for me, 3 points is all that matters.

Howay the lads!