Hard to say who is to blame. Is it the owners? The upper management? Hughton himself? The players? Us fans? Who should take the blame? Newcastle's Sunday defeat at the hands of West Brom 1-3 was a not so happy reminder that we haven't won since the 1-0 shocker over Arsenal on November 7. It's been a month now since the Toon tasted victory. The brass at Newcastle decided that someone had to take the blame.
The string of non-winning has seen Newcastle drop like a stone down to the #12 spot in the table. At 5-7-4, we're clearly not a great team. If the teams below us have a solid next two weeks while we continue to flounder, we could find ourselves right back in the thick of the relegation fight. Clearly this isn't the start to the season that the Toon's upper management was looking for. 19 points in 16 games just isn't going to cut it. Forget the injury to our starting goalie. Forget the off the field problems impacting our top striker's performance. Forget the fact that we had amazing outings against Chelsea (in the Carling), Arsenal, and Sunderland so far this year. Forget it all. We're just not measuring up.
And, who do we look to when we want to hand out blame. How about the longest "interim" manager in this history of European soccer? Isn't it Chris Hughton's fault that we're doing this badly? Shouldn't he be inspiring the troops of the Toon Army? Shouldn't he have this team at least in the top half of the table, 16 games in? After all, he won the Championship title last season. Shouldn't he be better?
Oh wait, that's right. I forgot that we were relegated just two short years ago. We were dumped out of the top flight, discarded like the trashy product we put out on the pitch week in and week out in 2008. We were awful. Then, in 2009, after players and others defected because they were too good to play in the second division even though they just sent us there with their pathetic play, something changed. Hopeless, the Newcastle upper management decided to hand Chris Hughton the job temporarily while they searched for someone to lead the team back to glory that has escaped us since the '20s.
Meanwhile, Hughton went on to pilot the Magpies, earning back-to-back manager of the month awards during the season. He impressed the hell out of the fans, as under his leadership, Newcastle finished their Championship stint 30-4-12. That includes going undefeated in front of the home fans for the entire season, clinching the Championship title on April 19, and bringing some of our best known players from today into the national spotlight. We were miraculously promoted after just one season. It was pretty amazing.
Once we got lifted up, the speculation started. Who would Newcastle hire to manage the team now that they were back in the EPL? What big name would we bring in to make sure we were not a joke around England once again? The upper management couldn't find anyone willing to take the reigns. Discussions of a long term deal given to Hughton based on his impressive performance seemed to be laughed off. Almost daily, Google News would pour out stories about this Mag player or that Mag player going on the record that they wanted Hughton to stay. Almost every player on the pitch voiced their desire to keep him around. And, as Newcastle seemed to not make any move one way or the other, he stayed in control. For a team that was shown the door just 2 years prior, Hughton kept Newcastle respectable this season. The opening season loss to Manchester was tough, but expected. Other than that, he kept us from being a laughing stock, and picked up some impressive wins along the way.
And yet, it wasn't enough. After the loss to West Brom, Hughton was sacked by Newcastle. No replacement has been named, and no replacement is really on the radar as of yet. We are once again a team without a manager. And why? We had our manager. He gained us promotion, brought us back into the national discussion, and this is the thanks he gets? The suffering is obviously meant to continue here at Newcastle, as this is just the next sign of how doomed this team is. We've gone from laughing stock because of our play, to respected because of our play, to a laughing stock because of the way the club is run. And the Newcastle upper management have no one to blame but themselves.
Next week it's Liverpool. Let's win one for Coach.
-- Sent from my Palm Prē
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