CHAMPIONS BOUND? MORE SIGNS POINT UP THAN DOWN

We are not English, so as a public service to Newcastle United partisans around the globe, today we dispense with English reserve and display the following phrase with classic American over-enthusiasm:

Champions League.

We know one home draw with Tottenham isn't a direct pass to Milan. With only 11 goals out of 8 matches and a modest differential of plus 5, the club, statistically, still looks a bit like a penthouse intruder. My co-blogger qualified his praise Sunday evening with a list of flaws that still glare on the field, and he's right. He also wrote, as many across England seem to agree, that despite the current standing, "Newcastle isn't realistically going to challenge for a Champions League spot this season."

On that I think he may be wrong. While the current club may not have Champions League written all over it, as Buddha said, everything changes. And as this season goes on, Newcastle United is more likely to change for the better than for the worse.

A reader has pointed out - "You Americans and your statistics" were some of his exact words - that this club has yet to fully gel. That's true of lots of clubs in week 8. But others don't have as many new pieces, not to mention an entirely new style of play, to break in. In this respect alone, it's not optimistic but merely reasonable to believe the club is not yet near its best. And that's aside from the improvement we can anticipate in the players as individuals.

Last season's club lost Hatem Ben Arfa at this juncture; this season's club is just getting him back. Last season's club had a No. 1 goalkeeper who was capable, but 35; this season's club has a No. 1 goalkeeper who's just starting to turn heads at 23. What Joey Barton brought to the club, Yohan Cabaye already at least arguably equals, at a stage when most French imports haven't come near to hitting their English stride. Davide Santon is an unknown quantity, but it's hard to imagine him not being an eventual upgrade over Danny Simpson, who's been at best adequate, or Ryan Taylor, who's been game but miscast. We caught a glimpse Saturday of what Shola Ameobi might be with some pressure taken off him, or put on him, depending on how you look at it. Demba Ba can only get more fit. Promising young players like Sylvain Marveaux and Mehdi Abeid and Haris Vuckic haven't seen daylight. And there's a January transfer window ahead with missed targets from summer still in play.

All that represents the best that could happen. What's the worst? The new arrivals stay only this good? The chemistry develops only this far? We don't get the No. 9 that we already don't have? There's the threat of injuries, of course, but that's what every club faces every minute. Yes, the schedule is about to get tougher. But there just aren't many unwinnable matches in the league right now. The wealth of the top has withered the middle. Newcastle's toughest opponent most of the season is likely to be Newcastle.

Which brings us to the area in which Newcastle may have improved itself most: the manager. Of all the encouraging signs, the most encouraging, to me, is Alan Pardew's success in making the control football so many managers talk about into a reality. Any club can fall apart, but it doesn't feel likely somehow with this club, not to me anyway. The detail-attentive style of play Newcastle is maturing into looks almost scarily lapse-resistant. Other teams, on their day, are going to beat Newcastle. But I don't think they'll be able to dink the ball around until Newcastle beats itself. In this big-head-small-body league, that alone can get a club almost to elite.

America is a vast country with lots of roads. If nothing else we know how to read signs. No long journey goes exactly as planned. But this American fan of Newcastle United sees plenty of signs pointing in the direction of Europe. Without an A at the end.

Comments

[SCOTSWOOD SUEDEHEAD]

Nice piece,Pardew is proving me wrong, hopefully we are now going in the right direction.!!

[Rob Moyer]

Rumors are circulating, but not yet confirmed, that we have all but signed Modibo Maiga through summer of 2016. He would obviously have to wait until January to start playing for the Toon but interesting news nonetheless.

[nobbystrumpet]

Excellent piece. As plausible an argument for the highly unlikely I have yet to read. I remain convinced that the one glaring weakness in the NUFC squad is a lack of goalscorers in midfield. None of our current midfield starters are natural goalscorers - last time we threatened the top 4 we had the likes of Solano, Dyer, Robert and Speed - 6, 7 or 8 a season midfielders - that's a lot of slack to expect our strikers to pick up.
There's a worry we could end up dominating games, but not scoring enough to see off weaker teams each and every week.

Arfa should be played in midfield behind 2 or on the wing - just to get an extra goalscorer on the pitch, Marveaux too for exactly the same reason.