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As they say, the table doesn't lie. And at the end of the 2008-09 Premier League season, Newcastle United wasn't good enough to avoid relegation into the League Championship. Sunday, needing a result at Aston Villa, Newcastle United lost 1-0, finishing 18th in the 20-team league. The Magpies are joined in the drop by Middlesbrough and West Bromwich Albion. Newcastle United was last relegated from the English top flight in 1989 and it took the club four years to return.
Sunday Newcastle United had a brief lifeline to stay in the Premier League, when Hull City fell behind 1-0 quickly to a reserve-laden Manchester United squad. Young Irishman Darron Gibson gave the champions the lead over Hull with a wonderstrike from long distance. As soon as the ball rocketed past Hull keeper Boaz Myhill, Newcastle United were on level terms with Hull and would have stayed up on goal difference.
Ten minutes later, came the goal the eventually proved the final death knell on the Magpies season. In the 35th minute Aston Villa captain Gareth Barry took a crack from distance. It took a wicked deflection off Newcastle's Damien Duff and keeper Steve Harper had no chance to react.
Newcastle United had well over an hour to draw level, which would have kept the club in the top flight for the 17th straight season as Manchcester United ended up beating Hull. The Magpies hardly threatened Villa the rest of the way as manager Alan Shearer sent on strikers Michael Owen and Shola Ameobi to no avail.
It was a microcosm of the season for Newcastle -- it just wasn't good enough, as three managers found out. The club now turns toward its murky future in the Championship and wonders how long it'll take to return back to the big time. Immediate bounce-back to the Premier League has proven a tricky proposition in recent times, though one of the promoted teams from this season -- Birmingham City -- accomplished the feat. To put it lightly, Newcastle United faces a lot of hard choices this summer, starting with what to do with Owen and the rest of its high-priced players.
As it turned out, all four clubs that could have been relegated on the final matchday Sunday -- Sunderland, Hull City, Newcastle United and Middlesbrough -- each lost. Yet Sunderland and especially Hull -- the preseason relegation favorites -- celebrate survival. Neither surviving club did all that much to warrant another season in the world's most popular league, but survive nonetheless.
It's a cruel business and again, the table doesn't lie.
