Federico Fernandez targets wins from pivotal Newcastle games

Rafa Benitez’s side are without a win so far this season.

And the club, beaten 2-1 by Arsenal at the weekend, is second-bottom of the Premier League ahead of Saturday’s game against Crystal Palace.

The fixture is followed by a home match against Leicester City a week later.

“We know it’s very important,” said defender Fernandez. “We have a couple of games against teams who are maybe middle of the table now.

“It’s no excuse, but in these five games we knew it would be very difficult, against top teams.

“But we’ve approached them well, we’ve played like a team, but we didn’t take anything.

“Now we need to start taking points, because that’s what we need.

“We need to analyse the good things, and prepare for Crystal Palace away.

“We can go there and win the game, so we need to be ready, be focused and positive.”

Newcastle matched Arsenal for 45 minutes, but they conceded two goals in a nine-minute spell after the break.

Fernandez set up the late consolation goal scored by Ciaran Clark, his defensive partner.

“I think we played very well in the first half, and we deserved more from the first half,” said the 29-year-old told NUFC TV.

“When you don’t score it’s difficult. We started the second half a little bit deep, and after the really good free kick, they started to feel more comfortable with the ball.

“We were disappointed because we approached the game very well, against a really good team. They scored the second goal, and after that it was very difficult to come back into the game, even though we scored once later on.

“We need to keep working, defensively especially, and to create chances, score goals and win games now.”