Within the unrest at Newcastle United, a young dressing room struggles for answers
Newcastle's inexperienced squad has faced a tough start to Premier League life, but Isaac Hayden tells The Independent how they plan to arrest their slide in form
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Your support makes all the difference.Newcastle United have been relegated twice in the last eight years. This is a starting point. That has never happened in the club’s history.
Wednesday’s defeat to Nottingham Forest in the second round of the League Cup was the club’s third successive loss (and their first at that stage of the competition for 27 years).
The mood to the end of May, after a dramatic league-winning campaign and helicopter rides and meetings, could not be more marked to now. It is a different football club. Within the unrest, is a young dressing room struggling for answers.
In 2016 that part of the football club was so flimsy it felt a miracle (and the introduction of Rafa Benitez) that it went to four days before the end of the season before relegation was confirmed (when Sunderland won, there is reason for the feeling the footballing Gods enjoy a bit of downtime with Newcastle).
Now, there is still the spirit from last season’s promotion, even if it is being battered amongst the stormy waters.
“We’re all young players and it’s very difficult going into the Premier League like that,” says Isaac Hayden. “It’s a young team, especially with the additions that we’ve signed.
“You look at the Premier League as a whole, and there are not that many young players playing in the Premier League in other teams. Burnley don’t have many. Crystal Palace only have a couple.
“But you look at our team and you’ve got (Jacob) Murphy, myself, (Mikel) Merino, Jamaal (Lascelles), our captain at 23. You’ve got (Javier) Manquillo, (DeAndre) Yedlin, players that are between 21 and 23. They’re not going to suddenly come here and have all the experience and the knowhow. But we’re doing the best we can at the moment, and it’s going to take a bit of time to gel together as a group and improve on the pitch and get used to the Premier League.
“I saw improvements against Huddersfield, and I’m sure there’ll be improvements on Saturday. We know it’s a massive game against West Ham.”
Newcastle’s recent history seems littered with such fixtures. Backs-to-the-wall, so much at stake, yet another must-win; unity and acrimony colliding paradoxically. It is a football club for which the level of care and intrigue are sometimes overwhelming.
Hayden, an England Under-21 international who was schooled with Arsene Wenger, is bright and not hiding away from a reality that is biting.
“No one wanted to lose the first three games of the season, but we’ve only got ourselves to blame,” he adds. “We can’t blame anybody else; we can’t blame the manager, we can’t blame the fans, it’s down to the players on the pitch to do the business.
“The final ball is just not quite there at the moment. It’s disappointing, but all we can keep doing is going back to the training field and keep trying our hardest. We have to keep trying to improve because if things don’t start turning and we don’t start getting results in the league, then it’s going to be an issue.
“The players have sat down and spoke about what is happening. That’s been said after the Huddersfield game. We’ve spoken during the week in training, and everybody knows. Everybody is switched on, nobody is sitting there blaming everybody else because you can’t blame anybody else. As players, you’re out there to do a job and we haven’t done it so far. The only people we have to look at is ourselves, and make sure we bring our mate along with us. We have to help people along.”
In this is a desire to help from a support once more conflicted. Newcastle have spent money on players (£41 million), but to the initial frustration of Benitez it was not immediate and in that movement came the loss of Willy Caballero. The levels of inflation in this summer’s spending has been a surprise. There still feels a need for a proven centre forward (Newcastle have had 39 shots in their last two games).
The squad, however, is heavy. Players who should have moved have not. Some have turned down the possibility of dropping back to the Championship. Assets have become a burden.
The possibility of losing a third successive Premier League game will likely galvanise St James’ Park on Saturday, where the flag of Benitez will be paraded in the Gallowgate End.
“The fans are very understanding,” says Hayden. “They’ve been used to the club being in the top ten for the last ten years. Obviously the last few years have been bad, but I believe they have the right mentality and the right support, and they understand football. Some fans don’t understand football at other clubs, but here you know they understand football because they’re football people.
“For us, we’ve got no excuses. The only thing we can do is try to improve and try to be better. That’s that really.”
It is a call to arms and it is needed.
Newcastle cannot afford another relegation campaign, financially, or emotionally.
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