‘Sticking by it’: Stuart Pearce doubles down on his pre-season Newcastle prediction

At the start of the season, former Newcastle United defender Stuart Pearce shocked the footballing world by predicting that Newcastle would win the Premier League.

Appearing on talkSPORT as the season was about to get underway, Stuart Pearce boldly claimed that Manchester City would fail to hold on to their Premier League title and that Newcastle would go on to lift the trophy.

To say that his comments were met with raised eyebrows would be putting it mildly, but Newcastle fans were loving it.

Whether they believed it or not, just hearing Newcastle's name mentioned as title contenders was a sign of how far we've come since the takeover.

Now, as Manchester City come off the back of three straight defeats, a run that was kicked off by Newcastle in the Carabao Cup and continued with two back-to-back defeats in the Premier League by Wolves and Arsenal, talkSPORT has once again asked Pearce to give his thoughts.

Pearce spoke to Ally McCoist and Andy Townsend yesterday to reaffirm his claim:

“At the start of the season, I predicted Newcastle would win the league and I’m not going to back away from that now. I’m sticking by it because I’m stubborn like that, but I still don’t think City will win the league.”

I'm still not convinced by Pearce's optimism, but I do love it, and stranger things have happened.

Newcastle also had a run of three straight defeats which cast doubt over whether they were even good enough to finish top four, but since then, other than the draw at West Ham on Sunday, Newcastle have been on a winning streak in the Premier League,

The Magpies still sit outside the top four, but it's very early days and a couple of wins will change the picture dramatically.