Magpies fight for survival

As Newcastle readies for this weekend's match against Chelsea, the scratch and crawl fight to avoid relegation encompasses every breath of the clubs day. The enchanted memories of a bygone era, while filled with pride, must be cast aside for this brief moment or the club will return to the second division that it climbed out of in the early 1990's.

While I warrant each persons vantage of the situation might come from a different angle but from action alone, upper management have taken the threat of relegation a bit too light to my liking. Whether it is the notion that the club is "too big to drop" or simply too difficult to consider, the issue of relegation will cause excruciating consequences on Newcastle. This decade alone we've seen the devastation of a number of clubs including Nottingham Forest, Leeds and now Charlton and if relegated, Newcastle's perilous financial position will further complicate its return.

With the owners company Sports Direct PLC equity price roughly one-quarter the value when he bought Newcastle £134m, to deny the ability to extend significant financial investment is misleading. The efforts to off-load the club in the late fall were not abandoned because of noble ideas but simply because the worldwide economic slide and well-capitalized investors were unwilling to pay his bloated asking price. While Sports Direct, with a capitalized value in the £340m range, is quenching its thirst and growing in its market business, as well as going toe-to-toe with Dave Whelan's JJB Sports, for Newcastle's hearty supporters the question needs to be asked; how focused is the club on avoiding relegation? To push the point to the darkest of domains, should Newcastle be relegated the cash fallout would undoubtedly create a tsunami effect of off-loading talent and a number of financially motivated decisions.

While such a question is fruitless, the organization has done little to provide Joe Kinnear the resources to avoid the drop due to the simple reason that the club does not have the financial resources. The manager, despite his gruff exterior and one that I suspect was a well orchestrated event to cultivate a siege mentality, has done a very fine job in the rough seas. However while he wishes to return to the managers role, triple bypass surgery is nothing to be scoffed and hopefully his medical advisers will suggest a different role. Precisely who will lead the club next year is a question that only time will answer and much will be decided in the final eight matches. Unfortunately the little known fact that ownership has a horrendous reputation amongst the coaching fraternity and it is unlikely that the likes of Steve Bruce or Alan Shearer or other notables would take on the role, particularly if faced with the climb out of the Championship.

However all that is clatter for another time as the "here" and "now" is the utmost concern for Newcastle. The Magpies, pardon the pun, must pull together in a united effort or they will find the tumble a paralyzing one to reverse. Motivation is key and for that, the crest is all the answer they will ever need. More than ever, remember the past and fight on.