Rafa Benitez challenges his Newcastle United players to meet Christmas points target
The Newcastle United manager has said his team must pick up six points from their next six games
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Your support makes all the difference.Rafa Benitez has told his players they must bag six points in the next six games to avoid being dragged into a relegation fight.
Newcastle United’s emphatic defeat to Watford at St James’ Park was their fourth on the trot, having conceded seven goals in there last two games, and saw them drop to 14th in the table.
It has led to a mood of concern among the club’s supporters – the team were jeered at half and full-time against Watford – and Benitez has attempted to rally a young and inexperienced side by setting a 20-point target by Christmas.
Newcastle have difficult away games at West Brom and then Chelsea next week, home games with Leicester and Everton and then head back to the capital to face Arsenal and West Ham.
“If my target for the first half of the season is 20 points and we have 14, we have to be sure we use these next six games to get those points,” he said.
“We then have to try to improve in the second half of the season. We have to learn in the Premier League what happens if you make one mistake. It will be tough, but I still think we are in a good position. It’s important in any team, especially a young team. When you are winning it gets easier. The only way is to stick together.
“I think the fans have been really good all season, but maybe after today a lot of them will realise it’s not a question of players or what system we play, it is about sticking together and we will have more problems. This is what we have. We have a team of young players and they are working hard but we are playing against good teams who are organised.
“After the game I just said to them what we did wrong. If you lose a game through lack of character or passion, but here we made mistakes. This team has the passion and character to come through this.”
Former Newcastle captain and manager Alan Shearer called the loss a horror show. Newcastle fell behind early to a Will Hughes goal, saw DeAndre Yedlin fire into his own-net in first-half injury time and just past the hour mark Andre Gray completed a difficult afternoon for Newcastle’s players and their fans.
They looked especially vulnerable down the right hand side and Yedlin, who was criticised on Match of the Day, spoke of how hard it had been.
“We’ve lost four on the bounce, I’m not going to walk out of here with a smile on my face,” he said.
“Worst day as a Newcastle player? It’s probably up there. We are just trying to stay positive. It’s very hard to after a performance like that, but it’s what you have to do. We are going to have drops like this so you have to try to stay positive and bounce back. We have a game on Tuesday, so in that sense we can try to move on quickly.
“We have to stay together, not just as a team but as a club, the fans as well, that’s what this whole club is built on. We have to make sure we stick together during this rough patch and come through it.”
Gray could have made the afternoon much worse, but spurned two fine chances. He spoke of the job Marco Silva has done at Watford, who went eighth in victory.
"It's probably not helped our cause by winning the last two games,” said Gray. “It's probably made him even more in demand than ever! His stock goes even higher now and just shows what he's done to our team. At the start of the season everyone was dissing us, even when we've gone through blips he's kept confidence in all the boys.
“He keeps us level headed, he never makes us think it's doom and gloom.”
How Tyneside could do with a dose of that.
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