Richard Keys has reflected on Newcastle United’s start to this season and how he feels it affects where they will finish in the league this year.
There’s no love lost between Richard Keys and Newcastle supporters, but while Keys has often spoken poorly of Newcastle, he does also find time to praise the club too.
In his latest blog post, Keys has looked at Newcastle’s start to the season and hasn’t let it affect his judgement on where they will finish come May but still managed to make a positive sound negative.
Keys expects Newcastle to fall short if any one player has a poor game
Keys wrote: “Newcastle is an interesting one. It’s three straight defeats now. It was 23 games before they lost three last season. So what’s happened?
“I said at the start of the season that I fancied them for the top six. I still do, but it struck me watching them at Brighton that if they’re not all at it – all of them nine out of ten every week, then perhaps they’re only average after all. This is a big season for Eddie Howe.”
I’m not sure how to take that, really. Just because we spread out our defeats last year doesn’t mean we didn’t get beat. The timing of them is irrelevant.
Newcastle have had by far the toughest start to the season
But the idea that all of our side needs to play at a nine out of ten every week is absurd. A seven is generally regarded as a good, if not remarkable performance. I believe that if everyone in Newcastle’s team played a seven we’d win against most clubs.
The fact we’ve played some of the toughest teams doesn’t seem to have factored into Keys’ view either.
I appreciate that he still backs us for a top six finish, but there are too many caveats attached for me to take what he’s saying as a positive.
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