Newcastle United fans and journalists are beginning to fall back into the old ways of living in negativity.
Since the takeover, which coincided with my own personal awakening, I vowed to try and remain positive, to always look at the good in the situation rather than focus on the negative. Both those sides are there in everything we do, so it’s easy to fall into that trap of looking at the wrong thing.
It has been working, for the most part, some of you regular readers may disagree, but part of the job is reporting on bad news so we can’t go around with blinkers on to everything negative.
However, there is suddenly a big black cloud looming over the club after what has been a very testing 12 months.
Last season’s injury crisis and the team’s inability to string together a good run before something catastrophic happened seemed to be the catalyst. Actually, no, our star signing being slapped with a 10-month ban just 12 games into the season probably started it.
We had hoped there’d be a line drawn in the sand at the end of the season but we’ve been slapped with wave after wave of perceived negativity ever since. We’re going to do a deep dive into the madness of this summer later, but for now, the highlights include constant speculation around our top stars (normal stuff), the PSR deadline drama, Amanda Staveley and Mehrdad Ghodoussi’s sudden departure and Eddie Howe’s choice of language in the interview which he could have used to put fans’ minds at rest over his future.
Those are just the highlights. Right now there’s a lack of activity in the transfer market which is cause for anxiety, and with pre-season friendlies now underway (Newcastle beat little-known German side SpVgg Unterhaching 3-1 behind closed doors at the weekend), Eddie Howe reportedly has another injury crisis on his hands.