Newcastle United winger Matt Ritchie has suggested that the club are lacking belief and must pull together to avoid relegation.
The Magpies suffered a 2-0 defeat at the hands of Manchester United on Wednesday night to leave themselves just two points clear of the relegation zone.
Speaking in a surprisingly frank interview with the Chronicle, the Scottish international suggested that the Toon Army are lacking in confidence.
He said: “The whole place just lacks belief. We have to keep believing.
“We have a game plan and we had chances to score and the players on the pitch need more belief and the fans as well.
“We are in a fight and while we knew it would be tough this season we need to roll our sleeves up and get on with it.
“This is where we find out if we have got the characters and the belief and the determination to achieve what we did last season. Hopefully we can come together and really pull through.
“We need to be together – everybody at the football club. Belief is the main thing, confidence and desire too.
“We don’t lack effort from the lads and at times we play one-twos and we get out into good areas.
“At times we get frustrated as players but that’s football, not every pass will be right every time. You aren’t going to do the right thing every time.
“When there are mistakes we have to react! It is about reaction and we need to react better because we do have that threat.”
OPINION
Ritchie’s candidness will come as a surprise to many, and could be taken as a worrying sign of the atmosphere surrounding Newcastle at the moment. Nobody expected miracles from the Magpies this season, but things have been worse than even they might have imagined, and at this stage in the campaign the concern will be that things aren’t going to get better any time soon. Attitude and belief are such a massive factor in top level football, and while the Toon Army might be trying their best week after week, if they don’t believe that they can get out of this relegation battle then they probably won’t. Comments from Rafa Benitez in recent weeks arguably haven’t helped their cause, but they cannot afford to consign themselves to the drop. They may be a poor side on paper, but there are teams worse than them in the league, and if they can recruit wisely in January, they can still pull away from the relegation zone.