Sky Sports pundit identifies Newcastle weakness, predicts 2017-18 finish
By Harvey Byrne
Sky Sports pundit Matt Le Tissier has insisted that Newcastle’s striker options will prove a weakness next season.
However, he also believes manager Rafa Benitez will have enough to steer the club away from relegation and has predicted a finish “just below mid-table.”
The north east giants are currently preparing for their return to the English top-flight after suffering relegation in 2016.
They romped home with the Championship title last season, picking up 29 wins from their 46 league matches, but Le Tissier thinks they’ll have a tougher campaign this time around and has tipped a bottom half finish for the north east giants.
“I would say, looking at the squad, in the forward department. Gayle has never really done it in the Premier League and Ayoze Perez and Aleksandar Mitrovic didn’t really deliver either so their weakness is scoring a lot of goals,” told Le Tissier, as quoted by the Sky Sports website.
“Just because of Rafa, if he stays there all season, they’ll be somewhere just below mid-table.”
When Newcastle were last in the Premier League in 2016 they earned just 37 points from their 38 league matches, resulting in relegation.
They will be hoping for vast improvements this time around and they can take some confidence in the last time they won promotion in 2010, they finished in 12th the season after.
But manager Rafa Benitez has also been open about the difficulty of this summer’s transfer window and he has reportedly missed out on a number of targets while bringing in Jacob Murphy, Florian Lejeune, Christian Atsu, Javier Manquillo and Mikel Merino.
The Magpies have also been presented with a difficult start as they will host runners-up Tottenham at St. James Park on Sunday August 13.
In other Newcastle news, this Magpies striker has been offloaded to an English club after terms agreed.
We’ve launched a << BREAKING NEWS FEED>> exclusively for your club. ‘Like Us’ on Facebook by clicking here if you want 24/7 updates on all Newcastle breaking news.