Final 14 Premier League matches difficulty for Newcastle United – Truth about Manchester City | OneFootball

Newcastle United travelled to Manchester City on Saturday the first of 14 remaining Premier League matches that will decide where NUFC will finally end up at the end of the season.

It didn’t go well.

Neither has the aftermath of the defeat.

I have read and heard some pretty strange comments from certain Newcastle United fans and outsiders.

Indeed, I had to double check.

Was this another Manchester City I hadn’t previously heard of, a non-league one, as opposed to the one that has dominated English football for a decade or more.

Apparently for some, it was seemingly a disgrace that Newcastle United didn’t win, never mind not getting a point.

Manchester City have dropped from their consistently excellent standards of recent years but it is all relative.

They are still a team and squad packed with brilliant players and recently spent £185m on four players in January, three of them representing £150m of that on the pitch, the other £35m or so on the bench.

Manchester City also came into this match as one of the Premier League form teams, four wins, a draw, with the only defeat at second top Arsenal in the last half dozen PL games.

Yet for some Newcastle United fans this apparently should have been a walkover, for NUFC!

Unbelievable.

Anyway, I thought I would try to rationalise this, how I saw it from my perspective.

Ahead of Saturday, this is how I saw the remaining 14 Premier League matches in terms of most difficult down to most winnable:

Liverpool (A)

Man City (A)

Arsenal (A)

Brighton (A)

Villa (A)

Chelsea (H)

West Ham (A)

Brentford (H)

Palace (H)

Everton (H)

Man U (H)

Leicester (A)

Ipswich (H)

This to me is the reality, the truth.

Yet for some Newcastle United fans it is as though this table of difficulty had been turned upside down. As though Man City away was Ipswich at home or Leicester away.

By some distance, I still saw Man City and Liverpool away, as easily the toughest two Premier League matches that Newcastle United had left to play.

For me, our season rests massively on what happens in those bottom nine Premier League matches in my list, win say at least seven of those and then one or two victories in the five (now four) games at the top of the list, add a couple of draws in and we are getting up around 70 points. A total that would all but guarantee Champions League football with all but certain the top five will qualify.

Aston Villa are one of the clubs who are hoping to force their way into that top five, they could only draw 1-1 at home to Ipswich, that is far more of a disastrous result than losing away at Man City, in terms of matches you can reasonably expect to get points from.

Eddie Howe and his Newcastle United players simply have to bounce back and get a victory in a far more winnable match on Sunday. Forest have of course done well but having already defeated them twice this season at the City Ground, United can for sure be capable of getting the win that would take us to only three points off third with 12 Premier League matches then remaining.