There is absolutely no room for complacency in the United camp despite the huge 2-1 win over Burnley on Sunday.
The sheer brilliance of Allan Saint-Maximin means that we have the luxury of being six points clear of 18th placed Fulham with a game in hand. That is a lead that really should not be caught but if anyone can throw this away, it is Newcastle United.
In addition, it seems that it is not just Fulham that we are up against now in this battle fro survival. Sam Allardyce’s West Bromwich Albion could actually overtake the Cottagers with a win in their game in hand and the form book suggests they have every chance of doing just that.
They condemned Thomas Tuchel to his first defeat as Chelsea manager and then backed that up brilliant with another emphatic win, this time demolishing Southampton 3-0 to give themselves a small chance of survival.
Allardyce is hated on Tyneside, he is probably the only manager we dislike more than our own Head Coach and being relegated by a Big Sam team has an awful air of de ja vu to it following our relegation in 2016 when Sunderland stayed up instead of us. I wonder how they are getting on now…
Furthermore, Brighton picked up a decent point at the weekend in their 0-0 with Everton and as such moved to a point ahead of us. There are a few sides picking up points around us and if we are not careful, we could get dragged right back in it.
Thankfully, Fulham’s form has taken a bit of a nose dive and they have lost their last four, but we shouldn’t rule them out completely. They have showed this season that they are capable of playing some good stuff and arguably have less points than their play has deserved.
Newcastle should only look to Watford’s situation last season to know that complacency is something we need to guard against. The hornets were seven points ahead of Aston Villa with just four games to go but unfortunately it was the Villains who stayed in the division with Watford joining Bournemouth and Norwich in the Championship.
Hopefully, United can avoid a similar collapse but would anyone actually be too surprised if it happened?