It’s generally accepted that Mike Ashley has no ambitions beyond keeping Newcastle United in the Premier League, but it’s a tough watch under Steve Bruce just now.
In fairness to Bruce he’s simply doing what he’s done throughout most of his managerial career – keeping a team in the top flight even if there’s little joy surrounding the performances.
Newcastle have had to deal with multiple injuries and Covid-19 issues so it’s not been straight forward, but there hasn’t been a lot of consistency around results or performances.
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Bruce’s teams tend to go on little runs throughout the season where they can pick up three or four wins and that can often be enough to keep you up at the end of the campaign – especially if those behind them are even worse.
A report from The Focus has looked at some models that have tried to predict the amount of points that Newcastle will end on, and there’s been some bemusement at the possibility of 40 points being attained.
They would need to gain 15 more points from their remaining 14 games which should be achievable, but you don’t really trust them to win most games so it’s also hard to figure out exactly where those points will come from.
They only sit six points clear of the relegation zone and Fulham look like a solid side who are on an upward trajectory, while we’ve also seen that Newcastle can collapse when the pressure mounts in the final few games.
There’s no doubt that 40 points would be welcome and it should be more than enough to secure safety, but time will tell if it can really be achieved.