Newcastle should already be in the top half according to Jonjo Shelvey

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Newcastle have spent the entire season fighting relegation, yet somehow they have a chance of finishing in the top half.

The Magpies have had a wonderful 2022 so far, with Eddie Howe guiding his team away from the bottom three.

Going into tonight’s game with Crystal Palace, Newcastle are 14th in the league with 37 points on the board. They’re 12 points clear of Burnley in 18th, and are actually closer to the top 10.

Leicester and Brighton are in 9th and 10th respectively, both sitting on 40 points. That means just three points separate Newcastle and the top half, which is staggering considering we didn’t win a game until December.

Howe has done an incredible job so far at Newcastle, but midfielder Jonjo Shelvey believes we should be doing even better.

Newcastle could already be in the top half if some games had gone differently

Ahead of the game with Palace, Shelvey spoke to NUFC TV about the club’s impressive home form. However, the 30-year-old believes the record should be even better.

“I was actually looking at games we’ve played this season at St James’ and it could have been a lot more points,” he said.

“If you look at the Man U game, the Brentford game, the Watford game and the Norwich game. We should be sitting…45, 46 points.

“But we are where we are. We’ve got 37 now and we’ve got to try and get to 40, then 43 and then keep building.”

If those four draws had been wins, Newcastle would have eight more points on the board. They would have 45, which would lift them up to 9th.

The games mentioned by Shelvey were extremely disappointing, and should have been wins for the Magpies. But they weren’t, and Newcastle are where they are.

There have also been plenty of occasions where Newcastle perhaps got more points than they deserved, such as our previous game with Leicester. That should have really been a draw, but we snatched victory thanks to Bruno Guimaraes’ last gasp header.

But with six games to go, Newcastle still have a chance of finishing in the top half. That should be enough incentive to finish the season strongly, starting tonight against Crystal Palace.