The Season as it Stands

Christmas is always the symbolic if not the literal halfway point of the season. I have been tracking the whole club and the number of games that have already been played for all our sides it already feels like a full season.

For the men’s first team they have already played 26 competitive matches

Won 12 Drew 6 Lost 8

Here is a round up of the state of play for all of our teams including…

Newcastle United 1^st Team

Newcastle United Women

Newcastle United Under 21s

Newcastle United Women Under 21s

Newcastle United Under 18s.

NFTV Focussed Non League Sides

1^st Team

Premier League

We currently sit in 11^th in the table six points of the traditional Champions League qualification places. It has been a season of inconsistency and night and day parallels between home and away form in the league so far. 17 of our 23 points in total have come at St James Park and it’s shuddering to think where we would be without that form. The positive is for us is that other than the current top 3, inconsistency has been the order of the day across the premier league, and a positive run of results could fire us or any side up the league. Our home form will be vital through the rest of the season as you would expect but also with the “Traditional” top 6 still to play away from home the timing of any potential run of momentum on the pitch or bad run of injuries off it means this season has barely hit the midcard yet.

Champions League

Our Champions League has been impressive overall and similar to the Premier League our home form has left us in a strong position to qualify for at minimum the playoff round.

FA Cup and League Cup

Our defence of the League cup has been relatively comfortable and led us to another semi-Final where we will play Manchester City over two legs. Our FA Cup campaign kicks off in January with a home tie against Bournemouth.

Newcastle United Women

WSL2

Newcastle United Women’s second season in the 2^nd tier started off well with a win over Newly promoted Nottingham Forest but followed that with a stuttering run in the league that led to the departure of Becky Langley. Claire Ditchburn took temporary charge and oversaw a draw and 2 wins including a St James Park win over Sunderland. Tanya Oxtoby was named as our permanent manager in the days following our derby win and has a 100% record in charge of us now in all competitions. The Lasses currently sit in 4^th place in the league and with a monster January coming up against the top two in the league either side of the FA Cup a positive January could give us a massive boost in our quest for the WSL.

Women’s FA Cup and League Cup

The Lasses were eliminated from the competition bottom of the group but not without coming back from 3-1 down to draw 3-3 in 90 minutes against an elite Manchester City who currently sit top of the WSL.

In the Women’s FA Cup, we dispatched a familiar foe in the form of Liverpool Feds. We beat them 4-0 to set up a Friday Night Football clash with WSL side West Ham United.

This will be an important game for us for a few reasons on top of the cup game itself. With the WSL expanding and the chance we could be in a play off come against West Ham if they finish bottom so that cup game will be a good measuring stick for where we are as a squad.

Under 21s (Men’s)

The U21s are in a lot of competitions this season and I do wonder whether that has had an impact on the Premier League 2 season. The Young magpies currently sit in 23^rd in the league with only two wins in 9. However, those two wins have come in the last 3 league games so hopefully a post-Christmas resurgence could see us move up the league into the top 16.

Also to note in the league is that our next two league games are both derbies against Middlesbrough and Sunderland who sit directly below us in the league.

Under 21s Cup competitions

As I mentioned before the Under 21s have been involved in a lot of cup competitions. They finished 3^rd in their EFL Trophy group. A penalty win over Mansfield gave us a glimmer of hope halfway through the campaign but it wasn’t to be.

The National League cup started with 2 wins over Gateshead and Boston United before defeat to Scunthorpe and a penalty defeat to Halifax left the under 21s missing out narrowly on the Quarter Finals.

The European campaigns have not gone well for our academy sides. In the Premier League international cup, we sit 2^nd bottom of our group without a single goal scored. We do have 1 game remaining against Benfica B, but we cannot get anything but pride in that game.

The UFEA Youth League has been equally forgettable as the Under 19s finished 3^rd bottom of the League Phase with six defeats in six.

Newcastle United Women Under 21s

Newcastle United under 21s embarked on their first ever season in existence and had a tough start. They finished bottom of the PGA League North, but they were facing established women’s academy and the value of that experience during their development will hopefully be a positive as our women’s academy establishes itself on a regular basis.

The PGA academy then split into two leagues with the top halves of North and South moving to division 1 and the bottom half to division 2. Since the split the young lasses, team have been able to win their first league game and hopefully can use this second division to develop even further through technical ability and mentality.

The Women under 21s also have cup competitions to contend with in their debut year. The lost in the Preliminary round of the PGA Cup to Sheffield United but do have a PGA Plate Quarter Final to play against Charlton Athletic in January.

Under 18s

The under 18s have been a positive story through most of the season when I have been writing my “Week for Newcastle United” articles. The currently sit 3^rd in the Premier League Under 18s league and have two games in hand over Manchester United in 2^nd.

The under 18s are also in the last 32 of the FA Youth cup with a home tie to Crystal Palace to come in January.

NFTV Focus on Non-League

As you may have seen on the channel there is some focus on two of the Northern non-league sides. North Shields currently play in the Northern Football League division 1 and Ryton and Crawcrook Albion play in the Northern Football League division 2. Ironically both currently sit in 9^th in the table (Providing I have found the up-to-date ones) Ryton seem to have games in hand over most of the teams around them in the league.

North Shields are also into the fourth round of the FA Vase a competition where the final is played at Wembley stadium as part of non-League Day.

If you haven’t had a chance to check out any of the non-league videos, then I would say go and have a look as they are always a good look and can see a lot of effort goes into them. Nothing to do with northern football but as I was on the subject of non-league I thought may as well mention my hometown side Cirencester Town whose men's and women's team both sit in 5^th in their leagues.

So that’s a basic round up of where things are for the whole of Newcastle United. The first team are fighting on four fronts, the lasses pushing for promotion, the under 21s grasping for consistency and could the Under 18s do something special as well. Its going to be a roller coaster of a five months across the club.

I will continue to try and keep on track with all of the fixtures and results and hopefully be able to add them to my week for Newcastle United articles.

Howay the Lads and Lasses