Newcastle United star makes 'win' admission ahead of scheduled West Ham United trip
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Newcastle have won just one of their opening six Premier League matches – drawing four – and go into Sunday’s match at West Ham United looking to end a run of five games without a win.
The Magpies sit 11th in the table with seven points while The Hammers are 18th with four points from their opening six matches.
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Hide AdEddie Howe’s side won their opening game of the season against Nottingham Forest 2-0 with Schar breaking the deadlock before Callum Wilson added a second. Draws against Brighton & Hove Albion, Manchester City and Wolverhampton Wanderers followed before a late defeat at Liverpool.
Last weekend’s goalless draw against Crystal Palace was a match Schar described as ‘like a defeat’ due to a controversially disallowed own goal.
While the results haven’t always gone in Newcastle’s favour, Schar remains pleased with the consistency of the side's performances.
“In the performances I think we have performed at a high level in the first six games,” admitted the Switzerland international. “Obviously when you look at the points, I think you want a little bit more.
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Hide Ad"We’ve won only one game and in most of the games there was more for us to take. But if we keep playing at this level, I think the wins will come.
“We just try to play at a high level every game with consistency over 90 minutes week by week. We did that towards the end of last year and this year as well. So we keep doing what we’re doing and then we need to get wins.”
In the five matches he's featured in, Schar has helped Newcastle keep three clean sheets already despite his central defensive partner alternating between Dan Burn and Sven Botman.
“We train the whole week and everyone knows what we have to do,” he added. “Obviously you need to communicate a lot between each of us but I think it doesn’t matter who plays because we work quite well in general and our defending is a lot better than it was a few months ago.
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Hide Ad"We’ve got a lot of quality in this position I think and whoever plays there, will do a good job.
“Generally we’ve defended quite well in recent games at a high level and it’s something that even if you don’t score, you get a point.”
Newcastle players have been given a short break following a busy schedule which saw them play three away matches in seven days before a quick turnaround to host Palace at St James’s Park.
It’s another long away trip for The Magpies this Sunday, but Schar believes the side will be ready.
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Hide Ad“It was a tough week with three games in seven days but now we refresh a bit and go again,” he continued.
“Mentally we just switch off a bit, you can’t switch off a lot but for the body and the mind, it’s good. We’ve had a bit of time [off] after a week like we had and we will be ready for the next game.”