Newcastle United suffered their second Premier League relegation in seven years and this is undoubtedly unacceptable for a club with the fourth-highest average attendance in England.
Steve McClaren will obviously take a large portion of the blame for the poor campaign, but there are plenty of additional conditions that have contributed to the Magpies’ demise.
Here are just three of them:
Away form
The Tynesiders were spared the ignominy of having the Premier League’s worst away record by hapless Aston Villa’s presence in the division, but even then, the Villans managed to find the net more frequently on their travels.
Newcastle have scored just 12 goals in their 19 away outings, picking up an embarrassing nine points across that period.
They are without a win in their last 11 matches played beyond the confines of St James’ Park, with a 5-1 defeat at Selhurst Park a particular lowlight.
Persistently failing to beat their rivals
Villa may be a worse away outfit than Newcastle, but the Toon were incapable of beating them in two meetings this season.
Indeed, Rafa Benitez’ men are the only Premier League team not to beat the former European champions at all this campaign.
In addition to this, they failed to beat Sunderland home and away, while defeats against West Bromwich Albion, Crystal Palace and Bournemouth have also blotted a heavily ink-stained 2015/16 copybook.
Long-term failure to get the best out of players
Leicester City’s ability to win the title on a relatively small budget shows what can be achieved when picking up the right squad members.
One of their champions is Danny Simpson who was released by Newcastle earlier in his career.
The full-back joins the likes of Hatem Ben Arfa, Fraser Forster and Davide Santon in the ranks of those that the club have let go on the cheap only to see them flourish elsewhere.
