Paul Merson predicts Newcastle’s Premier League finish this season

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Paul Merson has suggested that Newcastle United fans have little reason for optimism this season ahead of their return to the Premier League.

Paul Merson has told Sky Sports that he expects that Newcastle will only just avoid relegation upon their return to the Premier League, suggesting that the fans will be the reason that they finish 17th in the table and not lower.

Rafa Benitez’s men appeared to be on the way back towards some of the better days they have enjoyed in the Premier League era as they won the Championship title and appeared to have everything in place to quickly re-establish themselves at the highest level.

However, it has been a surprisingly quiet summer for the Magpies with just five players signed – none of which can arguably be labelled as marquee additions – and Merson fears that Benitez’s men are about flirt with relegation a lot more than they actually need to.

“They won’t be happy with this, but they haven’t really recruited yet. I worry for them, and I think the fans will keep them up. This is a Championship team, and they haven’t really added much top-flight quality,” he told Sky Sports.

“They get 50,000 every week, they have Rafa Benitez as manager, go out and sign two £30m players! They haven’t done that, and I think they’re cutting corners. I worry about Benitez getting frustrated.”

With such a high-calibre manager in place, it will certainly do nothing for the relationship between the supporters and the club’s hierarchy if they frustrate the Spaniard to the point that he considers his future, as Merson fears he may do if things do not change.

Benitez has shown a lot of faith in the vision and potential of the club by managing the side in the second tier and bringing them back up at the first attempt, and it could certainly be argued that he therefore deserved a greater number of signings at this stage of the window – or, at least, a greater amount of money spent on the players brought in.

And Merson appears to be very concerned that it may only be the finest of margins that keeps them up in their first year back at the highest level.