TV slot has rivals waiting in wings

May 9 2009 by Mark Douglas, The Journal

Newcastle’s chances of staying up could take a serious battering or be seriously enhanced today – without so much as kicking a ball, such is life in the Sky Sports era. Mark Douglas reports

WITH just three weeks of this tortuous campaign remaining, it appears increasingly likely seven teams will influence the battle to stay in the Premier League.

To the division’s bottom five of Sunderland, Newcastle, Hull, West Brom and Middlesbrough, you can add the big wigs at Sky Sports and Setanta – courtesy of their tortuous and convoluted scheduling of the relegation run-in.

This afternoon will be the third inactive Saturday since Shearer took charge, and the fourth time in five weeks his team have kicked off later than most of their relegation rivals.

An afternoon of frayed nerves and gnawed nails awaits as Shearer, his players and a legion of worried supporters await news from the North West and East Yorkshire, aware factors out of their control will have a massive bearing on their fate.

How different it would be if Newcastle and Middlesbrough played out their tussle at 3pm today, unaware and unaffected by the results of others. But thanks to the increasing demands of the viewing public and the big television companies, that luxury has been ripped from United this afternoon.

Call it the viewing public’s macabre fascination with Newcastle’s desperate plight or the fact the team remains, despite its struggles, guaranteed box office – either way it has had a massive psychological impact over the last month.

Think back to the Stoke away game, played out in early evening after Blackburn and Middlesbrough had secured crucial victories.

Were the nerves that Newcastle displayed in the early parts of that game really unconnected to the urgency with which points were required?

Similarly, was Newcastle’s more positive start against Portsmouth not related to the fact weekend results had gone for them that day?

Cynics would quite rightly point to Newcastle’s failings on the pitch as being more influential and they would have a point. But if timing of games is considered important enough for the league to make sure all the final games of the season kick off at the same time, the impact of all these staggered starts should not be dismissed so readily.

Ask Iain Dowie, who watched Hull’s defeat at Aston Villa on Monday night after suffering through United’s numbing defeat Anfield.

The decks were loaded in Hull’s favour but they could not take advantage – and it gave him a huge lift.

He said: “Did it give us all a lift? Very much so. We don’t like to be relying on what everyone else is doing – we should be able to get ourselves out of trouble – but it is still a bonus.

“The Hull game was interesting because it put where we are into perspective.

“Neither of those teams had as much quality as Liverpool, which I said to Alan afterwards, so we cannot let ourselves get too down about the Liverpool result.”

Not that Sky or Setanta can really be held to account for their approach to the final weeks of the season.

Both companies have paid hefty fees to secure the rights and the necessary consequence of those companies providing the cash for the Premier League to develop into the world’s elite league is they are entitled to cherry-pick the best games and vandalise the fixture list.

With the clubs so reliant on television money to fund their lavishly-rewarded squads, ensuring the fixture list is fair is a battle they cannot hope to win.

Surely in twitchy boardrooms across the country, there must have been some regrets about selling so many different television slots that relegation and title issues are affected.

Shearer and counterpart Gareth Southgate will be hoping the psychological advantage has swung back to them by 5pm today.

After overseeing a brisk training session this morning, Shearer will retire to his office at the training ground to take in the results as they happen.

Wwhile victory remains essential whatever sequence of results emerges from the afternoon’s games, he knows victories for Sunderland and Hull would put a different complexion on an already critical Tyne-Tees derby.

Wins for the Black Cats and the Tigers would leave the losers of Monday’s game all but relegated with two games remaining, a frightening prospect for a manager who has talked about his team still having ‘time on their side’ in the battle to avoid a humiliating drop into the Championship.

“Psychologically it would be fantastic if we were three points behind. It would be a huge benefit,” Shearer admitted.

“Six points is a heck of a lot more than three point, so you know what we want. We are hoping and praying Bolton and Stoke can do us a favour and we will have our fingers crossed.

“We are training this morning. In the afternoon I will be sat with the Teletext watching the results come through like everyone else. I won’t be going to walk the dog!”

Asked whether he felt a touch of frustration that the fixture list had been altered to suit the vagaries of television, Shearer took a philosophical approach.

With his recent experience on the Match of the Day studio, the Newcastle manager clearly appreciates the demands of television.

He says his players will have to deal with whatever hand has been dealt to them by fate.

“I don’t know about being frustrated by it. That is what we are in to be honest, whether it is Saturday, Sunday or Monday – we have to deal with it. We have to win.”

GARETH Southgate, who confirmed skipper Emanuel Pogatetz will not play again this season because of his knee injury, will send his Middlesbrough team out at St James’s Park on Monday bristling at the suggestion they lacked fight during last Saturday’s 2-0 home defeat by Manchester United.

He said: “It annoys me when people talk about lack of fight in teams. When I was younger, I possibly thought winning a fight was an important part of football, but actually, it isn’t. You have to have courage to take the ball, you have got to have the courage to make the right decisions under pressure and you have got to play good football.

“Yes, you have to win your challenges and you have to stick your head in where it hurts, you have to be prepared to make tackles and put your body on the line.

“You have also to go and play, and if you want to be a top playeryou have got to play in intense atmospheres.”