Former Newcastle centre-back Steven Taylor appeared on ‘The Football Revolution’ podcast. On the show, he spoke mostly about the Magpies and the final club in his career, Wellington Phoenix.
Additionally, the local boy also spoke about his current time in Dubai doing fitness training in the mornings and football coaching in the evenings.
Taylor joined the Newcastle academy in 1995 and was promoted to the first team by 2003 under Bobby Robson. He stayed with the Toon Army until 2016 when he was released by the club.
As a victim of relegation twice with Newcastle, Taylor knows it’ll be a dog fight
With Newcastle appointing Eddie Howe in November, the style of football has changed. Taylor believed that this would mean he could be subjected to a lot of criticism in comparison to predecessors Rafa Benitez and Steve Bruce.
He stated: “He’ll get a lot of criticism coming his way because what he’s done now he’s inherited from the past two managers which have been more defensive and I think with his philosophy he wants to be more attacking”.
Regardless of how the Magpies play Taylor believes Newcastle will need to fight in order to avoid the drop. The now-retired defender told the hosts, “we’re in a dog fight at the bottom of the league, you’re gonna have to kind of grind results out, get results out. It doesn’t matter about pretty football and he’s gonna have to find a way now.”
Newcastle must sign players who ‘understand the culture’
Anyone affiliated with the Toon Army has been asked their take on the takeover and Taylor is no exception. As a Newcastle fan growing up he sees it as an exciting time. But he believes Newcastle can’t just throw money at players, they need players with the right characters.
His verdict was: “It’s attracting to top players now for January, but you need to get the right players. It’s key to understand the culture at Newcastle.”
Additionally, he didn’t get carried away and understood survival is the priority. Taylor understands it’s a marathon, not a sprint, “it ain’t gonna happen overnight we all know that but the main thing is survival this season.”
Since the new owners arrived, the ex-centre-back has already noticed the change in atmosphere at St James’ Park. Taylor said: “The atmosphere is back and that’s what we’ve been missing for many years now, it’s nice to have our football club back.”
Still a Newcastle fan through and through, Taylor teases Sunderland fans
This podcast episode made it clear that Taylor still has his loyalties to Newcastle. One of the hosts wanted to know if he had watched the recent two seasons of the Netflix ‘Sunderland ‘Til I Die’ documentary.
Taylor admitted that he’d watched it and took plenty of enjoyment from it. He quipped jokingly, “it was enjoyable for me seeing the Mackems cry”.
Some Newcastle fans, including Taylor, understand that there are good times on the horizon. But understand it will take time for the new owners to clean up the mess of Mike Ashley’s regime.
The focus for this season is survival in the Premier League this season. Then work on progressing up the league from there.
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