Real Football Man All of the Football, All of the time
Newcastle will look to continue their unbeaten run this Afternoon as they play hosts to a familiar face in the shape of Alan Pardew he brings his Crystal Palace side to St James Park fresh off of securing a F.A. Cup Final appearance but that will have to be put on the back burner as he could be in for a hostile afternoon.
Rafa Benitez is seemingly making progress at Newcastle but is the progress quick enough and more importantly will he run out of time to keep The Magpies up this season. They’ve managed to pick up 5 points from the last three matches but although they aren’t losing they really need to be picking up wins at this stage of the season.
After an impressive draw at home to Manchester City and subsequent win over Swansea they followed that up with a spirited comeback last Saturday at Anfield as they came from 2-0 down to salvage a point but for their extra endeavour as of late it still sees them in the bottom three right now.
They may have found a blessing in the fact that Crystal Palace will now have Wembley in the vision now so I wouldn’t be too surprised if players were either rested or took their foot of the pedal in these next couple of weeks. You may question integrity when it comes to this part of the season but ultimately you can only beat what is in front of you.
That’s not to suggest that Alan Pardew is going to setup with a weakened team to do his former employers a favour, if anything it will be far from that but I just think mentally the players focus will be thinking on possible silverware and a Europa League place in 4 weeks time.
Alan Pardew bought in England Rugby Union coach Eddie Jones in during the week to try and give the players a bit of a boost as let’s not forget they’ve only won once since the turn of the year. It’s been a 2016 to forget in terms of the Premier League campaign.
They still aren’t mathematically safe themselves although I would imagine they will just have enough to not have to worry about a relegation battle this season. So they will want to ideally get over the 40 point marker today but I just feel Newcastle will want this just a little bit more.
The fans would love to see their beloved Magpies get one over the former Alan Pardew and in turn boosts their own hopes of survival. I’m going to go for a home win as I think Newcastle are making progress as of late and I don’t see that momentum being halted today.
Papa Johns – If your team scores twice then it’s half price
