Stuart Pearce claimed that Newcastle United were in a little bit of a crisis when analysing Arsenal’s start to the season.
The former England defender questioned how good Arsenal’s 1-0 victory over the Magpies really was as he shared that he thought the Magpies were in transition and in the midst of a small crisis currently.
Pearce’s crisis claim then saw former Chelsea defender Jason Cundy pipe up to say one word, as he simply said again to highlight this wasn’t the first crisis at St James Park in recent memory.
“You’ve got an absolutely plum in the first game of the season against the team who arguably are in a little transition and are in a little bit of a crisis at the moment in Newcastle…” said Pearce on talkSPORT (17:42, Friday, August 23rd).
Cundy interjected to say, “again,” before Pearce continued his point on Arsenal.
“And you get a win against Burnley over the line and Burnley have played well in the game, so this result (clash with Liverpool) will determine how good their start has been,” finished Pearce.
OPINION
While Cundy may have been being a little sarcastic by being so quick to say again in regards to Pearce believing Newcastle are in crisis, the panic button does seem to get hit quickly at St James Park. Despite only being two games into the season, there seems to be a genuine concern that the Magpies are in for a rough time and should potentially be preparing for a relegation battle. Granted the Magpies have lost their two opening matches, they lost 1-0 to Arsenal before Norwich brushed them aside to win 3-1 on Saturday, but crisis is a very strong word to use. The Magpies didn’t get their first win of the season until November 3rd in their 2018/19 campaign when they beat Watford 1-0 thanks to Ayoze Perez, and Rafa Benitez didn’t seem to be bracing himself for the worst. However, you do feel everyone generally had more faith in Benitez, due to his CV having things like Champions League winner on it, than they do in Steve Bruce currently as the 58-year-old’s CV isn’t exactly a comfort. The 58-year-old ahead of taking over Newcastle this season had only won 28.1% of the 392 Premier League games he had been in charge of (Source: BBC).
