A flashback to happier days at Newcastle

With the memories of Darren Peacock, David Ginola, Alan Shearer, Les Ferdinand and Philippe Albert’s strikes merely a distant memory these days, another crowd of approaching 50,000 Geordies could only look on in frustration as the Seagulls’ Beram Kayal found the net on October 20, 2018.

Rather than witness a glorious lob from Albert to wrap things up, this latest Saturday afternoon outing is more likely to be remembered for Newcastle’s woeful attempts to cancel out Kayal’s fortunate winner.

Newcastle have major problems and it is already hard to imagine how they are going to be able to lift themselves off the foot of the Premier League table, never mind climb out of the bottom three.

There might have been a few decent saves from Brighton’s goalkeeper Mat Ryan, but in truth this performance could have gone on all night and Newcastle are unlikely to have levelled things.

There was a ridiculous attempt of a Rabona from 20-yards from Kenedy that probably would have entered the Guinness Book of World Records had it gone in, and the long range drive from Joselu curled away and hit the corner flag to sum up Newcastle’s afternoon in the final third.

Those also appropriately sum up Newcastle’s season so far; after all it is the problems in the final third that could well lead to a third relegation in ten years come May. On the evidence of the first nine games, it is certainly looking that way.

The defeat to Brighton might have only been the fourth time that they have failed to score, but a truer reflection is that only once have they scored more than one during that winless start to the campaign.

And it is hard to imagine things taking a turn for the better on that front because not even Salomon Rondon – the squad’s only out and out, powerful centre forward – has a track record for scoring a glut of goals.

There is even a sense that Benitez doesn’t even have the answers, as displayed when it was suggested afterwards that Newcastle don’t have the players to score goals to get them out of trouble.

He said: “We had 27 attempts, we have to be more clinical in the final third, that’s it. It’s something we have to carry on working on in training and hopefully we can improve.”

Will Rondon’s return from injury help? He added: “We just need to increase the competition for places, with Rondon or anyone who can help with the team.

“If they come with the energy that you need. When something is wrong, maybe another approach, a different mentality with more desire this time, it can help. We have to be sure that we have that competition.”

Perhaps it is easy to say with hindsight, but Newcastle do look a much weaker attacking force without Dwight Gayle, following his move to West Brom on loan that teed up for Rondon’s arrival. Neither Yoshinori Muto nor Joselu, despite possessing plenty spirit and endeavour, look dangerous enough to fire Newcastle out of trouble.

The big question is whether Benitez will be given the time to try to turn things around. There is no way he can be completely absolved of blame for Newcastle’s current malaise, after all 14 of Saturday’s match-day squad were his signings.

The Spaniard now boasts a worse start to a Premier League season than any of his predecessors and collecting just two points from nine games means the club’s worst return at this stage of a top-flight campaign goes on.

To make matters worse this latest failure was against a Brighton team, managed by ex-Newcastle boss Chris Hughton, which had gone almost a year (17 matches) without winning away from home.

It is worth noting, though, and should not be ignored, that Newcastle’s net spend since the summer of 2017 is just £1m compared to the £110m spent by Brighton.

And even though the number of doubters is growing, Benitez has clearly had his hands tied behind his back during his time back in the Premier League with Newcastle.

Benitez said: “The fans can see the team’s working really hard, they can be upset if they miss a pass or a chance, but the players they are trying and it’s a question now of having one game where we might be lucky to score to change the confidence and everything will change.

“Should they stick with us? Yes. It’s good if they stick with us, that’s the right message because we need everybody on board and we realise that’s the only way.

“If we do what we need to do we will win some games. Once we win that first game, our confidence will be higher and we can compete. We have shown against the top five that we can compete, but maybe we’ve not been lucky enough in the final third.”

Newcastle are three points adrift of safety already and need to find a lift from somewhere after heading into a run of ten matches before Christmas which will determine their season. They didn’t play particularly poorly against Brighton, until they got into the final third when they lacked the cutting edge everyone knows they don’t possess.

Things might have been different had Ayoze Perez’s early effort not been saved by the leg of Ryan during a bright start. But after a lengthy delay for when Glenn Murray was knocked unconscious after a collision with Federico Fernandez, Newcastle lost their rhythm.

That led to Jose Izquierdo’s first time effort from the edge of the area, after the impressive Shane Duffy had won a header from a corner that shouldn’t have been given, deflecting in off Kayal and Brighton had the lead.

Newcastle battled away after that to try to level without success, mainly because they found Duffy and Lewis Dunk too strong for Muto, Perez and Joselu. On the occasions the home side did get through, Ryan denied Shelvey a couple of times. Ritchie and Muto also wasted headers.

Benitez needs results now and can’t afford to bank on January strengthening.

He added: “We can only look at the position now and we can’t say we’ll do this and do that after January. We’ll just carry on trying to win games now and try to find three teams worse than us. That’s it.

“When you’re at the bottom of the table, normally it’s more difficult to play the way you want to play. Now we’re there, I said before with the fixtures we’ve had it was going to be difficult.

“We’d like to think we could be higher, and with the performances, we deserve to be higher, but that’s where we are and we have to try to carry on.

“I’m just upset. We’re analysing everything, and we knew they could do this and that –everything. We knew it was in our hands, and we didn’t take our chances.

“We just have to continue to play like this, convert the chances and improve.”

Newcastle fans will certainly be hoping it is that easy.