It is Coventry City up next for Newcastle United.
Just the three days left to go until we have the pleasure of the Monday night Sky Sports slot.
It is now 20 days since the hard fought victory over Hull City.
Now it is another promoted club that Newcastle United are up against and if getting another victory, the Premier League table could look very sweet.
Depending on other results, Matthias Jaissle and his team could be as high as third in the table after six rounds of Premier League matches.
As we have already seen this season, every point will have to be earned by Newcastle United, so Monday will be no different.
However, the performances and results so far have shown that whilst NUFC lost some undoubted quality in the summer, the newly shaped squad has got plenty of character, no shortage of fight and commitment.
The Hull City match was the first of the season whereby Newcastle United weren’t selected by UK broadcasters.
That means for the majority of Newcastle United fans, neutrals as well, they are reliant on the media for the story of how the match went.
I did make a point of watching the MOTD highlights and it didn’t accurately represent the match that I had watched in the flesh. Hull City were outplayed for 65 minutes and Newcastle United should have had the game wrapped up.
The MOTD highlights and most of the rest of the media only wanted to portray this as a contest where Newcastle United were desperately hanging on for a win. The media wanting it to be seen as a lucky victory for United.
Yes, that is part of the story of this game the final 25 minutes plus added time where Newcastle were having to cling on.
The far bigger picture though was that Matthias Jaissle’s team had actually played really well for over an hour and it only turned when ironically Sean Steur won the ball back and initiated a move that should have seen Newcastle finally get the three goal lead that they deserved as a minimum. That chance wasn’t taken and in the course of setting in motion that counter-attack, Steur had cramped up and had to be replaced.
With nine players ruled out through injury, of the eight outfield subs the only one who had ever started a Premier League match was Fabian Schar. So Matthias Jaissle had to call on him to replace the teenage midfielder who had been excellent in this match. The substitution led to a major reshuffle of the formation and whilst that was settling in, Hull took advantage within seconds and got a decent goal of their own. Instead of what should have been 3-0 or better, United suddenly 2-1 and with such limited options on the bench.
Five of the remaining seven outfield bench options were kids who had never played a single minute of first team football for NUFC, in most cases for any club in any league.
There were any number of tiring players that Jaissle could have taken off but in the end only Fernandez-Pardo (also cramped up after an energy packed non-stop running display) was replaced by Toure and in the very final minutes Joe Willock off and Aladji Bamba on.
Of the 18 Newcastle United outfield players in that matchday squad, 11 of them were aged 21 or under.
Yes, Newcastle United had largely targeted young up and coming players from the continent this past summer, BUT this was nothing like what Matthias Jaissle would have imagined his options to be in only the fifth Premier League match of the season.
This was a match where Newcastle United were in control for roughly two thirds of it and should have won comfortably, didn’t take enough of their chances and with such limited bench options they were left hanging on for the last third or so of the game.
The ridiculous number of injuries and the fact they had impacted on so many key experienced players, was conveniently massively underplayed, even totally ignored by some in the media.
Over three weeks without a match.
It hasn’t been a total cure for all in the treatment room but on Thursday we saw Matthias Jaissle say that he hopes to have at least three or four back available from the nine who missed Hull through injury.
Joelinton and Nico Gonzalez are two of those, as for others who might make it, the Head Coach has left us and the opposition guessing. William Osula was spotted back in group training, Dan Burn said before the internationals that he expected to be back. Dedic, Livramento, Ramsey and Elanga are the other four outfield players who missed the Hull match and their condition/availability unknown.
Hopefully all 13 outfield players used during the Hull match will also be available on Monday and then with another four or so back from the injury list, Matthias Jaissle will have a team AND the bench power to get another three points against Coventry City.
It won’t be easy against the promoted side but no sensible Newcastle United fan imagined that any match would be a win taken for granted this season.
United have fought into a position whereby they are in the last 16 of the Carabao Cup and eight points from five games in the Premier League has given an excellent platform to progress from. I think the Newcastle United players will have enough to beat Coventry City and that is all that we should be looking at, at this point in time. Game by game and hopefully a season that can build and build, especially the more players that become available from the treatment room.