Abeid: Newcastle can cope with difficult Christmas schedule

Newcastle midfielder Mehdi Abeid is confident the club’s nightmare Christmas schedule won’t plunge the club back into crisis mode.

Alan Pardew’s men face a gruelling series of fixtures, taking in games against Chelsea, Arsenal, Tottenham, derby rivals Sunderland, Tottenham, Everton and Manchester United.

Take into account their current fitness woes, with a number of senior men out injured and a handful of others managing niggles or playing through pain, and the ride could soon get rough.

But Abeid, who lined up in Tuesday’s draw with Burnley after training only once following a broken toe, remains optimistic.

“We have a lot of injuries but also a lot of players who can replace the big players here,” the Algerian midfielder said.

“We have great players in the team but we can swap, we can deal with injuries but it’s annoying to have so many.

“We have to keep looking ahead and look forward to the next game against Chelsea.

“I don’t know... maybe we can make a surprise against them. We play at home with our fans which is good because our fans help us.

“Let’s see what we can do against Chelsea.”

Meanwhile George Boyd claims Burnley will continue to be written off, despite extending their unbeaten run to four matches against Newcastle.

Boyd opened the scoring in Tuesday’s 1-1 home draw, although the visitors came on strong in the second half and equalised courtesy of Papiss Cisse.

Sharing the spoils against a side who had won five of their last six Barclays Premier League outings will still be seen as a point gained in Burnley’s battle for survival and they left Turf Moor having exited the bottom three for the first time since September.

“I don’t think anybody still gives us a hope in hell, but we believe we can do well at this level and stay up,” he said.

“Four unbeaten is good at this level. When we were losing we were nearly there, we were playing well and it was a just a matter of time before we turned those losses into wins.”

Burnely are away to QPR, with the Hoops currently second bottom. It is the kind of fixture that is routinely dubbed a ‘six-pointer’ in the second half of the season and Boyd does not deny its significance. “It’s a huge game, there is a little mini-league at the bottom and they are one of the teams we need to be beating and picking up points against,” he said.