With a three game winning run putting the end to a losing streak that threatened to see the city implode, now is the time to learn to take stock.
Our manager Rafa Benitez warns repeatedly after defeats and again when we win that the next important fixture is the one ahead, not what trends or patterns can emerge.
Too many people wrote off the season after the first two league defeats as well as the League Cup loss to Notts Forest but there’s far too many people now going full circle when we’ve put together this nice run with Champions League and days out in Europe maybe not being said as tongue in cheek as they come across.
Rafa’s words you’d hope are being digested by the Newcastle players in that the season start was nowhere near a crisis and the winning streak nothing to celebrate, it’s one game at a time and each one underlined as we go.
For me, the ultimate target is still the 40 – 42 point mark, then we see how many games are left before revising the next target. We are still in a season of rebuild with little to nothing being invested on the playing side as a Net outlay, so there’s big room to improve.
The mentality of the group of players we have now is light years away from the majority of squads we’ve had in the last 20 years or so and we may be in a good place to progress further although the spectre of Mike Ashley will always linger to scupper things, the least we can do as fans is to get too expectant or react out of proportion to where we are.
A long way to go yet and the next game although more winnable than it once maybe was, is still going to be very difficult and ultimately only worth three points either way. In Rafa we trust.
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