Source: Northern_Echo
Time to take stock and reflect on Newcastle progress, says Taylor
THEY have failed to win three of their last four matches, but Ryan Taylor has urged everyone associated with Newcastle United to retain a sense of perspective at the end of a difficult year. Monday's draw with Derby County followed hot on the heels of similar results against Barnsley and Sheffield Wednesday, two other sides currently struggling in the bottom half of the Championship. The run of results has reduced Newcastle's lead over second-placed West Brom to six points the Baggies also have a game in hand and led some commentators to claim that the promotion race is not the foregone conclusion it appeared three or four weeks ago. Taylor accepts that things have not gone to plan over the festive period, but after a year that has seen relegation on the pitch and relentless boardroom upheaval off it, the versatile midfielder feels it would be wrong to blow the current blip out of proportion. It's important to keep things in perspective, he said. Yes, it's a wobble, but if this is as bad as it gets all season, I think we'll all take that and be happy. We were all disappointed in the dressing room after the Derby game, but maybe that's a sign of how far we've come. At the end of the day, we've drawn two games of football and are still 11 games unbeaten. We'd won seven or eight before the draws, so we can't really grumble about the situation we find ourselves in. We're still top of the league by quite a few points, so we're still well on track for where we want to be. Nevertheless, the last week has proved that nothing can be taken for granted ahead of a six-week spell that is likely to define the remainder of Newcastle's season. The Magpies' first league game of 2010 is at Reading on January 9, but after they return from Berkshire, they will face three of the Championship's current top five in their following four matches. West Brom and Cardiff both visit St James' Park, with Newcastle due to travel to Leicester on January 30, and a nine-point haul from those games would create an all-but-unassailable position ahead of the final three months of the campaign. We have a lot of big games coming up in January, and we're all very mindful of that, said Taylor. We play a lot of the sides that are challenging at the top of the league in the first five or six weeks of the new year, and they're obviously going to be important matches. We have West Brom and Cardiff at home, and Leicester away, and they could go a long way towards determining where everyone's at come the end of the season. We have to pick up points against teams like that if we want to be pushing clear. While Newcastle ultimately failed to break the deadlock on Monday night, Taylor came as close an anyone to a goal with a first-half free-kick that struck the top of the crossbar. The 25-year-old was making only his second start in nine matches, but feels his spell on the sidelines should be attributed to an inopportune injury rather than any loss of form. Taylor was injured in the pre-match warm up ahead of November's 1-0 win at Preston, and while he has been available for the last few weeks, the winning run achieved in his absence meant Magpies manager Chris Hughton was never likely to make wholesale changes to his team. I got injured in a warm up, so it's not as though I played my way out of the team, said the Liverpudlian. I was playing up until then, but I got injured and the lads have obviously done very well in my absence so I can't really grumble about not getting straight back into the side. I'll keep going. There's a lot of competition in the midfield areas, but we have people fighting for their position all over the park. It's not easy to nail a position in this team, but I'll keep pushing on the best I can.