“We’ll have a good season this year, definitely. I’m going to be on it, Allan is going to be on it — and I’ll be kicking him up the a*** to make sure he is! Jonjo (Shelvey), is almost fit now, Ryan Fraser is fit and getting games in, We just need to make sure we’re doing everything we can to start the season right.”

Callum Wilson, Newcastle new no. 9

Steve Bruce's Newcastle United finished the 2020/21 campaign the 12th best football club in England after a roller-coaster of a campaign that soared with the best start since 2012/3, dipped in the middle due to a Covid-19 injury crisis then rose rapidly again as the Geordie Head Coach won April Manager of the Month to save The Toon's bacon.

And now Joe Willock is on board after sealing his £25M move from Arsenal, there's no reason why Newcastle can't recapture that Top 6 form to which his goals inspired The Magpies to end the season in style with a Premier League Performance of the Week thrashing Leicester 4-2 in their own back yard, one of 5 wins in the last 8 matches.

England international coach Graham Jones being back with the Newcastle squad after his crucial input at Euro 2020 with The Three Lions - elevating the national team to a first major tournament final since the 1966 World Cup - for the full season is another big plus with his cajoling intensity on matchdays, leading edge training and tactical tweaks.

With better luck, a full season of Newcastle's new no. 9 Callum Wilson (who has swapped shirts with Joelinton who has inherited Andy Carroll's no. 7 strip) who has undergone special training methods to strengthen his hamstrings & avoid further injury - will result in even more goals than the 12 goals he scored in 26 Premier League games to fire The Magpies further up the table and himself back into the England squad.

Allan Saint-Maximin is Newcastle's talisman on the pitch yet like Wilson last season, played only 65-70% of Premier League games in his first two seasons with the club – 25 in 2019/20 & 26 in 2020/21 – so if he can stay fit & raise that to 30-35+ games, Newcastle will prosper as the win % of the side is dramatically greater with him in it.

When Newcastle had their best players fit and firing, Bruce's men were a match for anyone beating West Ham & Everton home & away and 4 draws against Spurs and Liverpool were good results and the permanent addition of Willock will see Newcastle close the gap on those 11 clubs who finished higher to crash the Top 10.

Newcastle's Fab Four – Willock, Wilson, Saint-Maximin & Miguel Almiron only started twice together last season – home to Southampton & away to Leicester yet the results, a 3-2 win at St James' Park and 4-2 victory in The Foxes' den to end their Champions League hopes, were a remarkable snapshot of what Bruce's side at full-tilt is capable of.

Add an improving Joelinton to the mix – 3 crucial goals in consecutive starts at St. James' Park against West Ham, Spurs & Man City and a key component of Newcastle's resurgence in the run-in - & The Magpies have options up front including Ryan Fraser & Dwight Gayle with the namesake of the obscure striker who makes it at St. James Park in movie Goal!, Santiago Munoz, the next potential signing to turn fantasy into reality.

JonJo Shelvey's importance to the team was underlined in last week's pre-season game against Norwich when he came on at half-time and transformed the Magpies, grabbing a hitherto dull 0-0 game by the scruff of its neck and orchestrating attacks with his superb passing that Newcastle's pacy forwards took advantage and first goalscorer Matt Ritchie's grit, spirit and never-say-die attitude was rightly rewarded.

The permanent capture of Joe Willock, a young, hungry English player, is a great signing for Newcastle and exactly the type of athletic box-to-box player Steve Bruce quickly earmarked that Newcastle needed soon after arriving at St. James' Park in 2019 and finally got on loan in the January 2021 window.

Unsurprisingly, his impact was immediate and showed what Newcastle had been missing – a player with the pace, legs & dribbling to carry the deep ball from midfield and the anticipation to join attacks late, bomb on from midfield and score goals.

And how – within 16 minutes of his first game, he'd become the youngest Newcastle debutant to score in The Premier League era and finished the season with an incredible streak of 7 goals in 7 Premier League games to equal Alan Shearer's record. He wasn't registered in time to face The Hammers yet has given everyone at the club a lift and will be a star at St. James' Park for the next 6 years after signing a lengthy deal.

Momentum is so crucial in football and after ending the season as one of the form teams in The Premier League, winning points off four of the Top 7 teams, beating Leicester and West Ham and drawing with Liverpool and Spurs and even putting three past Man City, Newcastle can start the season in confident mood.

Picking up where NUFC left off last season with 5 wins in 9 games and 17 points from the last 27 available is certainly something Jacob Murphy, who found his Newcastle niche at right wing-back to establish himself in the side last season, believes possible:

"The last 11 games was top-six form, there or thereabouts.
"You know, we want to put in those kind of performances from the start, and see where we end up.
"We played well in those 11 games."

The bookies have predicted Newcastle to finish 13th in The Premier League but that is a conservative estimate based on a false season for Newcastle, who started well and ended well, but had a big dip in the middle due to The Premier League's worst Covid injury crisis & that could well be an underestimate of a competitive side at full strength.

West Ham United boss David Moyes was quick to recognize Newcastle's strong finish in his pre-match presser as his Hammers side seek to replicate the excellent season they had, finishing 6th and qualifying for The Europa League, without the stellar talents of Jesse Lingard who joined them on loan to great effect but has stayed at Man United.

As Newcastle found in the 2012/3 season under Alan Pardew, juggling a Premier League and Europa League campaign can be a strain on players and squads and Moyes' experiences with Everton a decade ago will be crucial. West Ham ended the season with two wins but only won one of five games before that so didn't end the season as well as Newcastle although they beat Celtic impressively 6-2 & Brentford 1-0 in preseason.

West Ham's Pablo Fornals was looking forward to the game at St. James' Park:

“I played at Newcastle in each of the last two seasons, but I’ve never played there with a crowd. Everyone speaks really well about this stadium with a crowd, so I want to see it and experience it for myself now."

although with a 50,000 capacity crowd expected on Sunday, let's see if he's saying that after the game if Newcastle's famously fervent fanbase have roared the home side to victory.

Steve Bruce expressed his delight at Joe Willock's signing, for whom the club and MD Lee Charnley have gone "above and beyond" to buy him when a preferred loan deal wasn't possible and confirmed that young goalkeeper Freddie Woodman would be between the posts for Newcastle on Sunday for his Premier League debut due to injuries to Martin Dubravka and Karl Darlow while everyone else in the Newcastle squad is fit and raring to go with the exception of Paul Dummett, who has a knock.

Asked if Newcastle could match West Ham's superb season last year and compete for a place in Europe, Bruce said "That's got to be the aim for everyone" (all teams) and that success for Newcastle would be to "improve on where we finished last season, attack the Cups...and go a step further than we did last year."

Game Prediction - Newcastle 3 West Ham 1

Final Season Prediction - Newcastle 9th