Survival hopes dashed - where do we go from here?

Newcastle were plunged deeper into the relegation mire on Saturday afternoon and are now sinking fast after the worst possible outcome played out at Carrow Road following Norwich’s injury time winner. And sadly Newcastle can have no one but themselves to blame after coupling sorry set piece defending and mindless indiscipline to see another so called ‘must win’ game end in defeat.

Players giving away these ridiculous free-kicks in dangerous areas is costing Newcastle crucial points. Unfortunately these particular points could prove to be the final nail in Newcastle’s Premier League coffin.

Newcastle certainly had a fair chunk of ill fortune on the day too with a clear handball in the lead up to the winning goal and Rafa was unhappy about the amount of stoppage time in the first half when Norwich scored the opener. But the days of blaming others has gone, Newcastle are in this mess because they are a poor side who concede far too many goals. Rafa is running out of games to turn this around with now only seven games remaining.

There are still positives to take from the game, even if there are no points. Newcastle responded well to going behind and again Rafa showed good in-game tactical flexibility. Mitrovic has hit some goal scoring form…finally and Papiss Cisse has added a threat to the side too, forcing a fine save from Ruddy to deny him what would have been the winner.

But the sad truth is that Newcastle can’t seem to perform for the whole 90 plus minutes of a game and certainly lack confidence and a match winning mentality. Where there is still hope that with 21 points left to play for, Newcastle can gain enough to catch two teams above them. The worrying thing though is that for sections of the games against Sunderland and Norwich, we were second best and only able to claim one lonely point.

Don’t give up yet though…Mitrovic hasn’t.