New low for Newcastle United

A 7-2 friendly victory over Darlington was followed by a battling 1-0 win at Huddersfield after starting out with a comprehensive 3-0 win against Shamrock Rovers. Although these results weren’t stunning, they were probably enough to give Newcastle United fans a cautious air of optimism.

Hated

With a hated owner wanting to sell the club and no manager appointed, the results in the friendlies at least lifted the doom and gloom around the club as they approach a difficult season in the championship after last season’s relegation.

That was all true until Saturday. League one Leyton Orient beat a pretty much full strength Newcastle side 6-1 at their Brisbane Road ground in a game that will have sent further shockwaves around St James’ Park.

New low

It is true that life as a Newcastle supporter is rarely dull but on Saturday things slipped to a new low for the club that seems to be in constant crisis. The defeat on Saturday was nothing short of embarrassing.

Pre-season games rarely tell us much and teams are often made up of a mixture of first-teamers, reserves and youth players. Unfortunately for the Toon army, that was not the case at Orient.

Strongest

The Newcastle line-up was Krul, Beye, Enrique, Taylor, Coloccini, Barton, Duff, Nolan, Gutierrez, Smith and Martins. That isn’t far away from their strongest team and they can certainly have no excuses for such a pitiful display against a League One side.

Clearly in normal circumstances one defeat after three victories is a long way from being a crisis, but the circumstances at Newcastle are rarely normal.

With the start of the Championship season just two weeks away there is no doubt that Newcastle are in crisis.

Conviction

They have no manager, an owner that wants to sell the club at any cost and a set of players that look desperately short of confidence and perhaps understandably, conviction.

The fact is that this is Mike Ashley’s second attempt to sell the club and it has been ‘for sale’ for a long time. No sale has materialised yet and it has to be doubtful whether one is on the horizon. With the season so close and the team in such trouble, it would take a very brave person to take the club on at the moment.

Impossible

By not appointing a manager yet Mike Ashley has made things not far short of impossible for the team to prepare properly for the coming season. He recently admitted making some big mistakes but that doesn’t seemed to have stopped him making them.

The FA is investigating a twenty man brawl that took place during their ‘friendly’ win at Huddersfield and now they have been humiliated in their next game. It really seems that just when Newcastle think things can’t get any worse, they do.

Significant

In reality this is just one embarrassing defeat in an unimportant pre-season run out. It is perhaps no more significant than the excellent win they had against Darlington a couple of weeks ago which was reported on far less. The problem is that when you put this defeat together with the ongoing disasters off the pitch it paints a really unpleasant picture for all the loyal and dedicated Newcastle fans.

It is difficult to see how the club can turn things around in the short term and the more time that passes without anything positive happening the more gloomy things look in the long term as well.

Just how can Newcastle United get things back on an even keel and restore some pride in their famous old club?