Siem de Jong says Newcastle must take game to Chelsea
Saturday 26 September 2015 17:37, UK
Attacking midfielder Siem de Jong believes that Newcastle have nothing to lose when they take on Chelsea on Saturday Night Football.
The North East club are yet to win a league game this season and the pressure is on manager Steve McClaren and his players to start producing results.
Speaking to Sky Sports News HQ ahead of the Premier League clash live on Sky Sports, De Jong admitted that the squad has to do better but said pin-pointing the problem was not easy.
"It's difficult to say exactly what's going wrong," he said. "It's a new season, a new manager and quite a new team.
"We are still trying to fit the pieces together. Sometimes in a new season it falls into place straight away and I think this season we just need to figure out the way we want to play."
The Dutchman feels that McClaren is looking to implement a style of play that he used from his time at Ajax, but one that is in stark contrast to the football Newcastle played in 2014/15.
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"The manager is hanging a little bit towards the Dutch style in how we want to play," he explained. "Last year was quite a lot different, especially towards the end.
"I think as a team and a group of players, we need to get used to the way we want to play. We are struggling a bit at the moment. We are not playing the way we want and of course, we need to fight every game to win every duel.
"Of course, the last game was a bad one and we had a couple of games - especially against Arsenal - when we were a little bit unlucky with 10 men, and against Man U where we defended well.
"We still need to improve, especially on the attacking part. It's difficult to say exactly what the thing we need to improve most is, but we sure need to improve."
With that in mind, many would consider the visit of the reigning Premier League champions to be the last thing Newcastle need. De Jong, however, disagrees.
"You need to get a good result or a good game to build confidence and last year we played a really good game against Chelsea and won against them at home," the Newcastle No 10 said.
"I think Chelsea is a game where you have nothing to lose, where you can give everything and show everything.
"Even if the result is not the way we want, we can still maybe have a good feeling about the game. Of course, if you get a good result against Chelsea, I think you'll have quite a big confidence boost.
"That will help, but you should see this game separately from the other ones. It's a bad run but against Chelsea, it will be a different game.
"Everybody knows it's going to be a different game and the atmosphere is going to be different. You never know what you're going to get in these kind of games."
Watch Newcastle take on Chelsea live on Saturday Night Football from 5pm on Sky Sports 1 HD.
