Are these breaks really any good for Newcastle?
We're sat in limbo again. Another weekend without NUFC having a game. No good!
Combine it with this sunny weather that appears to have graced us with it's presence, which means that there is a very real risk that I could handed a list of 'jobs' to do around the house over the weekend, No good. If there was football on I'd get left alone, but there isn't which means that I'm a prime target for the wife this weekend.
You see, the gap between these fixtures is no good for me. It was no good to NUFC last time when we got spanked by Stoke 4-0. I've said for quite some time that Newcastle struggle after these gaps in the fixture list. Whilst other teams seem to be able to rest and recuperate, Newcastle seem to forget how to play football and generally struggle.
It's something that I just thought of one day and it seems to have stuck. I've done no research on it so I couldn't tell you if my made up assumption was accurate, so I thought I'd do a bit of digging about now and see if there is actually any basis to my thought on these 'breaks' in the fixture list.
So, how have we fared after the various breaks this season? For clarity, I'm only counting breaks of more than seven days. Here goes:
11-09-2010 - Newcastle 0-2 Blackpool - Break = 14 days.
16-10-2010 - Newcastle 2-2 Wigan - Break = 13 days.
26-12-2010 - Newcastle 1-3 Man City - Break = 15 days.
02-02-2011 - Fulham 1-0 Newcastle - Break = 11 days.
26-02-2011 - Newcastle 1-1 Bolton - Break = 11 days.
19-03-2011 - Stoke 4-0 Newcastle - Break = 14 days.
It doesn't make for good reading does it? That's six fixtures after long mid-season breaks, and only two points gained from the lot of them. The worrying thing is that four of those games have been at home and two of those home games have been against sides that we should be looking to beat at St James' Park. Does that bode well for next weekend?
Well it has to change eventually doesn't it, so why can't it change against Wolves? Granted the stats suggest that we could struggle, plus we have this Saturday 3pm jinx as well as nerves to deal with, but these kind of runs are there to be broken.
It's a shocking revelation really, but I thought I would do a bit of research into it to see just if my suspicious mind was being just that - suspicious - with regard to our run of form after international and cup competition breaks.
As for what causes this, well who knows. Part of me is leaning towards the fact that the players are used to playing so much football from last season when it was generally a case of playing two games a week, every week. They aren't used to having so many gaps in the fixture basically.
What do you think is responsible?
