Issac Hayden has hailed ‘fantastic’ team spirit at St James Park and has revealed the players are closer than ever.
The Magpies will be looking for their third top flight victory on the bounce against Stoke at the weekend following a difficult few opening games to the season.
Newcastle recovered from defeats to Tottenham Hotspur and Huddersfield Town to beat West Ham United and Swansea City, and Hayden believes their recent good form is a result of both depth in Rafael Benitez’s squad, and the ‘unbreakable’ bond formed in last season’s Championship winning season.
“If you look at Jonjo being on the bench, you see there is depth there,” said Hayden speaking in the Shield Gazette. “If I’m honest then I think at the start of the summer we probably thought there’d be even more competition for places with the money being touted around for the club to be spending.
“Obviously, things didn’t happen that way, and we’ve kept a lot of the group that we have from last season coming into this season.
“I think that’s helped us, because the togetherness has been fantastic. Even after the first three defeats, we stuck together.
“We’re a young group, and we came up against West Ham and put in a great performance, then put in a great performance against Swansea and got three points away from home.
“Hopefully, we can keep building on those things on Saturday.”
Newcaslte welcome Stoke to St James’ Park tomorrow afternoon. Kick off is at 3pm.
