Newcastle apparently play a club in crisis this weekend when they host Manchester United at St James’ Park, but the reality is, their fans do not know what a crisis is.
Tottenham Hotspur are another – supposedly – after losing 7-2 in the Champions League to Bayern Munich last night.
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Newcastle United are a club in crisis, with a hopeless manager, boycotting fans, woeful league position and little belief of any chance of improvement from fans.
In reality, Manchester United and Spurs fans need to get some perspective, and get real.
Manchester United sit 10th in the Premier League table on nine points, and yes, for a club like them it is a poor start – but that is all it is.
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They play AZ Alkmaar in the Europa League on Thursday, and of course a club like them want to be in the Champions League – so do we, but no one has a right to be in it.
Toon fans would gladly swap Manchester United and Tottenham’s problems for their own
Newcastle fans would give anything to be in the top half of the table and have a European campaign in any of the tournaments.
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Of course, fans of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s side will say it is a different set of circumstances, and they are right, of course.
But don’t dress a poor start up as a crisis until you are staring relegation in the face, with a manager who looks incapable of formulating any sort of plan to get out of it.
Same with Spurs. They got a hiding from Bayern Munich, one of the best teams in Europe. We got a hammering from Leicester.
Perspective.
Spurs have a world class manager in Mauricio Pochettino. We have Steve Bruce.
Perspective.
They sit sixth and can qualify for Europe’s top table competition again. We are 19th and will be lucky to scrape fourth bottom by May.
Perspective.
So please – do not describe yourselves as clubs in crisis, you would not know what one is if it slapped you in the face. It is an insult to those of us who genuinely are.