Georginio Wijnaldum: United Newcastle can win most Premier League game
Midfielder Georginio Wijnaldum is convinced Newcastle can beat almost anyone if they play as a team.
The 25-year-old Holland international played the starring role in the 2-0 victory over Liverpool on December 6 which launched the three-game unbeaten Barclays Premier League run the Magpies will take into the Boxing Day clash with Everton at St James' Park.
Steve McClaren's men were denied a third successive win by struggling Aston Villa, who left Tyneside with a 1-1 draw last Saturday evening, but Wijnaldum is confident the penny had dropped inside the dressing room.
He said: "If we play as a team and fight hard and play our football where it's possible, we can win most games in the Premier League. That includes Everton, although it will be a difficult match.
"Everton are better than Aston Villa and have a lot of good players, so it will be tough, but if we do it as a team, anything is possible."
Back-to-back victories over the Reds and away at Tottenham eased Newcastle out of the relegation zone, but with Norwich and Bournemouth in particular also enjoying notable successes in recent weeks, they remain too close for comfort to the bottom three.
In the circumstances, a home draw with rock-bottom Villa came as something of a disappointment, although like McClaren, the players have been able to look at the bigger picture since the game.
Wijnaldum said: "If you'd said that we would beat Liverpool and Tottenham at the beginning of that run, people would have said you were crazy. We have to be happy after the results in the last three games. It's good for us.
"That said, we were disappointed not to beat Aston Villa and make it three wins. I was disappointed because I thought we had the chance to win the game. We fought to win it, but missed out.
"But that's football - sometimes you will miss chances and sometimes you will score. Sometimes you will miss easy chances, then score the difficult ones."
McClaren is looking for his players to respond once again to ensure that the recent improvement does not prove to be another false dawn.
The 54-year-old said: "We've had this two or three times where we've thought, 'This is it now, we can really kick on' and take the performances and the results and go forward, and then we've dropped back.
"We've got another opportunity on Boxing Day, a tougher opponent - a really tough opponent - but we believe on our day with everything right, we can win any game."
Everton fans can have confidence that chairman Bill Kenwright will always do what is best for the club.
That was the message from Toffees boss Roberto Martinez amid takeover talk at Goodison Park.
Everton have refused to comment on a report in The Times that American pair John Jay Moores and Charles Noell have signed a head of terms agreement and are studying the club's accounts ahead of a possible takeover that could be completed within six weeks.
Kenwright has long been searching for new investment in an attempt to ensure Everton do not fall too far behind the financial heavyweights of the Barclays Premier League.
Martinez said: "We all know what a fantastic chairman we have. Going forward we've got a really exciting team and I think the youth and the talent that we have in our dressing room reflects that spirit in the boardroom.
"Our chairman will always look for the best for Everton and clearly when it's something we have to share with our fans, the fans will be the first ones to know.
"But whatever's going to happen in our future is going to be good because we're in a great position and the football club is in the best possible hands."
The Toffees, meanwhile, are without a win in four in the league and needing a reversal of fortunes to stay in the top-four picture.
Conceding goals has been Everton's main Achilles heel, so captain Phil Jagielka's return from two months out with a knee injury cannot come soon enough.
Martinez is confident the defender, along with midfielders James McCarthy and Steven Pienaar and wide man Bryan Oviedo, will feature at some point over the next three weeks.
He said: "It's a really busy period for us but it's great news to have those four players in a position that they've already started to work with the group and we feel very confident that, in one way or another, they'll be involved in any of those seven games."
At the other end of the pitch, Everton have been performing very well, not least Romelu Lukaku, who can equal an Everton record set by Dixie Dean in 1927 if he scores in a ninth consecutive game against Newcastle.
"You're talking about footballers that are Everton giants," said Martinez. "To have Romelu's name around those is an incredible achievement."
Source: PAR
