Are the Newcastle Jets headed for the Wooden Spoon?

The season began so positively for the Newcastle Jets. Their short term future was assured by the FFA, Coach Gary Van Egmond resisted Sydney FC’s overtures while the Jets also signed veteran Englishman Emile Heskey to create quite a buzz in the Hunter.

And to be fair to the Jets they’ve been decent this season maintaining a place in the league’s top six for the bulk of the season assisted greatly by a five game unbeaten start.

Yet things are starting to unravel for the Jets and with just 5 games left there’s a chance their season could end with a wooden spoon.

Yesterday’s decision to allow Ryan Griffiths to immediately take up an offer from Chinese club Beijing Baxy strips the Jets of their best player who has not only scored and taken more shots than any Newcastle player, but whose four assists are twice as many as their next best performer.  

With Heskey having scored just twice in his last 10 matches it’s hard to see where their goals are going to come from, particularly seeing as only Wellington and Perth have scored less this campaign.

While the Jets are currently sitting sixth their position belies their current level of play with only Sydney FC and Wellington sporting a worse goal difference.

Just six points separate the Jets from last place and with Sportsbet offering up odds of $51 to collect the wooden spoon, a small investment might be in order.

Newcastle has won just 3 of their last 16 encounters and have been held goalless on 7 of those occasions. If the Jets are saved from a wooden spoon it will likely be because the likes of Wellington and Perth will have run out of games to chase them down.

Curiously the other major betting companies in Australian have taken down their wooden spoon markets in the wake of Griffith’s departure. All but Sportsbet who failed to adjust their price which really should be more around the $10 mark.