Toon’s malaise isn’t unprecedented but history suggests they need to pick up fast

WILL it happen today? Newcastle play at home to Burnley looking for their first win of the season in their 15th Premier League game.

Even if they do not win, however, their plight will not be unprecedented. Sheffield United went 17 games without a win last season. QPR went 16 without a win in 2012-13.

The Premier League reduced to its present size at the start of season 1995-96. Since then 15 teams have begun a season by reaching double figures without a win.

Newcastle also did it three seasons ago. Then they went ten games without a win. Afterwards they recovered to finish 13th. Only two other teams, though, have avoided relegation – Blackburn finished 13th after failing to win in their opening 11 games in 1996-97 and Derby finished 17th after failing to win in their opening 13 games in 2000-01. Will Newcastle escape from a worse position this season?

After getting that first win every other team did better in the rest of the season than they had done before. Typically they averaged just under a point a game over the rest of the season. In other circumstances that would be dicing-with-relegation form. After a start of ten plus games without a win it made avoiding the drop extraordinarily difficult.

Of course other clubs did not have the new Newcastle owners’ enormous funds to spend in the January transfer window.

As new Newcastle manager Eddie Howe (pictured) has acknowledged, though,

persuading better players to sign is not easy when a team could be playing next season in the Championship.