The Athletic FC

And welcome to the Athletic FC podcast with me, Ayo Akimwalere.

With 12 wins, six draws and 12 defeats in the Premier League, Newcastle,

have been struggling to find consistency this season.

So a year on from their historic Carrabo Cup win at Wembley, are Eddie House side actually

progressing? All right, in with us today, we've got George Calkin. We've also got Jacob

Whitehead as well. Yeah, it's been a bit of an odd season for Newcastle so far, gents. They're

ninth in the Premier League, but they've also picked up

some pretty huge results recently, if you think about them beating Chelsea, also Manchester

United in the Premier League, and then that draw against Barcelona in the Champions League last

week. But, George, from your perspective, why have they been so inconsistent this season?

Well, you have to go back to the summer and a summer that Newcastle entered without a

sporting director, without a chief executive, which is negligence, I would say, at the top of the

club. They lost their, one of their few world-class players

in very controversial circumstances right at the end of the window. The business they did

the other way was unsuccessful. It was desperate. There was a chaotic tinge to what they did

in the market.

And they've been suffering the consequences ever since.

They've been attempting to transition as a team whilst on a marathon campaign. They've played more games this season than any other team in the big European leagues. And it's just been a, it's been a

struggle. It's been a struggle in, in lots of ways. You know, that question about progress is an

interesting one because, you know, Barcelona, a game that they've got on Wednesday night would

would be the ultimate argument to say that they are progressing that you know they've reached

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