Newcastle Just 7 Points From 7th Place

In this crazy Premier League season, there are still only 9 points separating the bottom 11 clubs in the league.

Nolan - could make big difference to Newcastle this season

So lots of clubs this season are threatened by relegation, including Newcastle.

But on the other hand a good run-in to the league from Newcastlethrough the end of the season could see us finish higher than lastyears 12th finish.
In fact we are just 7 points behind Wigan Athletic rigth now, who are in 7th place.

At this stage of the season last year, after 25 games, Kevin Keeganhad just managed his 4th game in charge, against Middlesbrough (1-1) atSt. James Park and the team was on 28 points from their first 25 games,with a goal difference of -15.

Today we have 27 points from our first 25 games, with a goal difference of -9.

But in the following 5 league games last year we managed just onepoint, against Birmingham away, and so this season we have a goodchance to do better than we managed last year, when we finished in 12thplace in the league.

After the Birmingham game, where Kevin tried his successful 4-3-3formation for the first time, we had just 29 points from 30 games, andwere in 14th place in the league with a goal difference of -26.

To do better than that this season we’ll have to pick up 4 points inour next 5 league games. Indeed, it would be great to finish at leastin the upper half of the league table for a change this year.


Not really great, but at least it would be an improvement over what we’ve done recently - which is not much at all.

If we can do that, we need to press on in the summer, and makechanges to the squad by bringing in some good players, and we have agood idea who they could be, after the January window.
And of course we must retain the very good core of players we have built up over these last 7 months.

One player who was surprisingly missing at the Hawthorns on Saturday was Nigerian striker Oba Martins, who was desperate to make his comeback, but was ruled out on Friday, since he had not fully recovered from his hernia operation.

Oba Martins - back for Everton game.

Martins had a hernia operation on January 12th in Munich, Germany performed by renowned lady surgeon Dr Ulrike Muschaweck.
Kinnear talked about why he didn’t risk Oba last Saturday:

“Oba had a fitness test on Friday, but after a long chat we decided there was a big risk factor if he didn’t feel 100% right.”
“So we didn’t risk him. Now he has a little break to get right for Everton.”
“I knew that I didn’t have to take such a big risk with him because Peter Lovenkrands can also play in the same position.”

Kinnear was kept in touch with events at the Hawthorns by his grandson before watching the highlights of the game on Saturday evening. It’s a really good job we were not hammered on Saturday, for the good of Joe’s health.
For the Everton game, Oba will be fit and we’ll have quite a few of our players returning from injury.
In fact the only players who will not be available are Michael Owen, Habib Beye, Joey Barton, Tamas Kadar and Danny Guthie, although Danny has returned to light training following his hamstring injury.
Ignacio Gonzalex is out until mid-March, with his Achilles injury, but exactly why we still have him on loan is a mystery to us. We can only assume we are tied to him by the loan contract agreement we signed in August, with his Spanish club Valencia.
So this is a good time to have increased competition for places, and the available squad of players we have now, is looking a lot better than it has done over the last two months.