Kevin Nolan confident of Premier League survival

Jul 19 2010 by Luke Edwards, The Journal

KEVIN Nolan is confident Newcastle United will be good enough to survive in the Premier League next season and has rounded on those who are predicting their return to the top flight will be a brief one.

Nolan still hopes to see the club make some significant signings before the transfer window closes, but is relatively relaxed about the lack of new faces so far.

And, having seen United’s promotion-winning campaign thrive on a siege mentality at St James’ Park, the midfielder has taken an early swipe at the critics who feel they are set to struggle this season, particularly the ex-professionals he feels are showing a lack of respect.

Nolan is a powerful voice in the dressing room and it seems Newcastle’s players will once again look to draw strength and motivation from the criticism of those they feel do not have the club’s best interests at heart.

He said: “Last year, there were a lot of questions swirling around.

“People didn’t know who was staying and who was going, we didn’t know who the manager was going to be – people were predicting we would go straight back down again.

“This year is more stable, but you still have people saying, ‘They’re not good enough’ or ‘They need this or that’. No matter what this club does, there’s a lot of people wanting to put us down.

“I’m getting quite sick of it, but we’ll just have to prove people wrong again. There’s a lot of doubters to prove wrong, and hopefully we’ll do that.

“As long as those 52,000 fans stick with us and the squad stick together, we’re confident we can achieve what we’re aiming for, that what happened last year never happens to this club again.

“There’s a lot of lads still hurting from what happened. The scars are still there, they have to be. We had to prove a lot of people wrong in the Championship last year, and we have to prove a lot of people wrong in the Premier League.