Kevin Nolan: NUFC defeats a blip, not a slump

Oct 24 2009 by Luke Edwards, The Journal

YOU are never too far away from a potential crisis at Newcastle United, but Kevin Nolan has quickly tried to extinguish the recent sparks of discontent. Chief Sports Writer Luke Edwards reports.

AT most football clubs, two defeats away from home would be a cause for concern. At Newcastle United two away defeats in a week leads to crisis talks.

There is an intensity which comes with playing football on Tyneside which can be hard to get to grips with, raw emotion and passion mixed with decades of frustration and bitterness.

It is a highly combustible mix and four games without a win ensures the fuse has been lit.

Given the stress and strain of last season and the relegation to the Championship which followed, that fuse is dangerously short – and a defeat at home to Doncaster Rovers today will cause plenty of tempers to explode.

It is a tense situation Kevin Nolan recognises and appreciates, but it is not one he agrees with.

If Newcastle’s promotion push has stumbled in recent weeks, Nolan points out they are still at the front of the race and very much on their feet.

“We are now expected to win games and to do this and that because we are top of the league,” said the former Bolton midfielder, who is United’s goalscorer this season.

“What I would say is out of the last four games, three of them we should have won.

“We should have beaten Bristol City at home and we should have beaten Scunthorpe on Tuesday.

“We had so many chances and then we missed a penalty against Queens Park Rangers.

“So it is not a crisis in my eyes. It is just a blip in form. We have not had the rub of the green – I think I scored a perfectly good goal down at Notts Forest.

“We are just inches away from another win, another five or six-game unbeaten run, when we claim five wins and a draw and then there is no blip, no crisis at Newcastle. That is what I firmly believe.

“At the beginning of the season, this many games in, if you had said we would be in this position, with this many points, we would have taken it.

“So would the fans. Everyone in Newcastle would have taken it.

“Seeing a lot of the fans around the town, that is exactly what they have said to me. ‘Don't forget where we are, what we have done’ and, you know, some of the stuff we have been through in the last two years, they are enjoying where we are at the moment, but we have to keep producing results.

“We have gone through four games, three of which we should have won.

“We haven't and we have got to move on. We have talked about what we have got to do, and hopefully we can put it all right against Doncaster and come tonight we will be sitting pretty again at the top of the table.”