8. Fitness Is The Key
Several of Newcastle's players so far this season have looked embarrassingly off the pace, and a pre-season spent testing out developmental players in anticipation of a long season and four competition fronts to compete on clearly did nothing to bring some much needed sharpness to the first team. Jonas Gutierrez usually looks tired, even when he is at peak fitness, but it has been extremely rare in the past few seasons to see him not racing to join play, or to at least try and show willingness to keep up, and yet after the first twenty minutes, the Argentinian looked positively knackered. Yohan Cabaye too looked short of fitness, and Papiss Cisse looked dangerously off the pace, wandering around the pitch as a passenger for far too long - though that of course could have been something to do with the unhelpful long-ball tactics - and Newcastle's fitness team really need to sort out the conditioning of the squad in the next few weeks before a punishing run of games kicks off with the September 20th away trip to Maritimo. So what do you think Newcastle fans - do you agree with the points above? Are you disappointed that Newcastle failed to beat Villa on Sunday? Share your thoughts below.