Pre-season results do matter!

I see Mike Williamson is agreeing with something I wanted to post about and make a point of here...

And that is that if our club wants to start being a winning one, and by that I mean actually claiming trophies, we need to be more ruthless about ensuring that losing games (of any kind) is a worst case scenario.

In my view it shouldn't be a tolerated cliche to say that losing pre-season friendlies or warm-up matches is to be expected, not important and all about gaining fitness and sharpness.
Of course this is what they are designed to be and prove invaluable for in anticipation of the competitive season – but our playing staff SURELY must have enough of a technical edge and sense of professionalism to ensure that the club isn't humbled.

With respect – losing to some German minnows on Friday night shouldn't be excused by saying they are a week or so ahead of the lads we put out in terms of fitness.

The truly big and successful teams are those who refuse to let the badge or shirt be tarnished by defeat in ANY public match. Although I try to convince myself that pre-season run-outs are meaningless and I shouldn't care, most of us fans still look on them with some interest and secretly hope we'll put on a show that builds hopes for the real deal.
At least if we're unconcerned about trying to claim victory, call the team a 'Newcastle United Select XI' like Man United do when on tour and dodge any shame that way.

As I look forward to the Monaco match up tonight I thought I'd throw this out there and see what the general opinion was?

BTW: I fully appreciate that generally, Newcastle have performed better throughout a season when their pre-season campaigns have been pretty dire. So perhaps I shouldn't wish for any better!

 

To a certain extent I'd agree. But you have to accept that defeats will come when you meet teams at different stages of pre season and depending on what team you put out. Sometimes you'll have to weaken the side significantly. Sometimes you'll meet a side about to start their season after you've just done a killer week of base fitness work. In general though you want to be winning as much as possible and certainly whenever you put a strong side out.

 

Pre-season matches matter, results don't really, as shown by our progress over the last few seasons.

 

As a fan I'd obviously love our lads to win every game. In reality the results in the first few pre-season games really don't matter (see Leyton Orient, Orlando and even Man City lost to Al Hilal the other night). It is the later games that really give you a sense of how the team is shaping up for the start of the season.

 

There you go - AS Monaco 0 Toon 1

 

Been a game on tonight has there?

 

Exactly last year we were awful in pre-season and yet ended up finishing 5th.