Tottenham travel to Newcastle in the Carling Cup on Wednesday and who would have predicted that it would be bottom v second bottom.
The pressure is certainly on both sides, but it is probably worse for Newcastle.
Obviously with Mike Ashley in the background trying to sell the club and getting rid of Kevin Keegan, which wasn’t a popular choice with the fans, it’s a bit of a club in turmoil.
As for this game, I think unfortunately for Newcastle, expectations are high at home and confidence is low and they are not picking points up at the moment.
They have lost to Hull and they have lost to West Ham. They have Chris Hughton sitting in the hot seat, but they have not got a buyer in and the longer it goes on the more confidence will be drained.
I’m sure the fans will again be voicing their complaints tomorrow night and you just have to think that Tottenham, who have just not had the rub of the green, will go up there with less pressure.
But the Newcastle players need to roll their sleeves up and get on with it. It is very easy from the players’ point of view to say there’s too much turmoil at the club.
The fans are not annoyed with the players, they are angry with Mike Ashley and Dennis Wise, so the players can’t use that as an excuse.
The players should be thinking that whoever comes in and buys the club, the players will be fighting for their futures and they should be all playing for their Newcastle careers.
Tottenham are slightly different in that everyone thought they would be challenging the top four but it has not happened for them.
In fairness, they lost Dimitar Berbatov and Robbie Keane, and that was a big blow. They have brought in players like Roman Pavlyuchenko, but he has come from Russia where he played a lot of football and looks a bit tired.
It’s going to take a while for all their players to gel and realistically it will be next year before they are able to challenge.