Advertisement

Soccer-Only win can ease pressure on Newcastle, says Janmaat

Sept 17 (Reuters) - Newcastle United must win Saturday's match against Watford to ease the mounting pressure on the Premier League strugglers and their forwardline need to start firing, their Dutch defender Daryl Janmaat has said. The Magpies have failed to score in their last four league matches, making it 402 minutes since they scored a league goal and now find themselves bottom of the league table, after picking up only two points from their five league games. Newcastle last scored in their opening match of the season when Georginio Wijnaldum put them ahead against Southampton on Aug. 9, only for the match to end in a 2-2 draw. The club have reportedly spent over 50 million pounds ($77.45 million) to bring in five new players to the squad, four of them to strengthen Newcastle's attacking depth. Their summer recruits, however, have failed to impress, with striker Aleksandar Mitrovic picking up two yellow cards and a red card in his first four games and 22-year-old French winger Florian Thauvin yet to make any meaningful impact despite a promising start. "It's a big game (against Watford) now. It's important that we get that first win under the belt and Saturday is the next opportunity to do that," Janmaat was quoted as saying by the Chronicle. "We have to win otherwise the pressure will only continue to increase. We have to offer a much bigger goalscoring threat. I try to join in, but I am a defender and that has to be my main job. As a team, we have to find a way of posing more of a threat. "We have to score more. There were times when we were trying to get men forward, but that left us open at the back and that cannot happen. "We didn't create that many chances and that definitely has to improve," the Netherlands international added. ($1 = 0.6456 pounds) (Reporting by Shravanth Vijayakumar in Bengaluru; editing by Amlan Chakraborty)