Fans entitled to be nervous after Newcastle Jets kick off 2023 on the wrong foot

The New Year's day defeat did not augur well for the 12 months ahead.

It wasn't so much the result that had alarm bells ringing, as the underwhelming display the Jets delivered in front of an 8041-strong crowd, their largest at home in more than three years.

As Newcastle coach Arthur Papas said afterwards: "We weren't poor. They [Sydney] weren't a lot better. We just got punished."

Papas rightly pointed out that his players were still trying to conjure a goal right up until the final whistle, so there was no lack of effort.

But what that highlighted was a worrying absence of creativity.

Last season, the narrative surrounding the Jets was that they could score goals - 45 in 26 games, the third-most in the competition - but they conceded so many (43) that it cost them a berth in the play-offs.

Even when they lost, they usually played an entertaining brand of football.

This season, the goals seem to have dried up.

Newcastle have found the net nine times in 10 games. Only two teams, Brisbane and Perth, have scored fewer goals than the Jets, and both have catch-up games in hand to potentially add to their tallies.

In five of their games, Newcastle have been kept scoreless. Compare that to last season, when they failed to deliver a goal in only four of their 26 games.

After 10 games last season, the Jets had 17 goals in the bank, almost twice as many as at the corresponding point of this campaign.

It's hard not to reach the conclusion that the departure of Brazilian playmaker Daniel Penha - who last season scored four goals and provided a club-record 11 assists - has left a void on the team sheet that Papas has not adequately been able to fill.

Meanwhile, Newcastle have still been conceding goals - 17 in total, more than all but two rival teams - and have the worst differential (minus-eight) in the A-League.

In saying that, the Jets are currently equal sixth (eighth on for-and-against), and as Papas noted on Sunday, the competition is so tight that a couple of wins will springboard any team up towards the pointy end of the ladder.

Whether the Jets are capable of going on a run remains to be seen, but to have any hope of doing so, they'll need to be better than they were on New Year's Day.

Otherwise, in all likelihood Newcastle are facing a fifth successive season as play-off spectators.

The Jets, at least, can claim to have broken even on home turf over the course of 2022, winning seven, losing seven and drawing two of their 16 games at Turton Road.

It's fair to say their NRL counterparts, the Knights, would gladly trade home-ground statistics after winning just two of 12 games in their own backyard last year. That included an unprecedented run of five consecutive hammerings by a combined scoreline of 197-28.

It wasn't so long ago that Newcastle were wooden spooners in both the A-League and the NRL simultaneously, an ignominy that was surely an injustice for the heart-and-soul diehards who turn up to watch them, week in, week out.

Little wonder there was such a buzz last year when Newcastle's NRLW team arrived back in town, still dressed in their grand final playing kit, with a premiership trophy in tow.

Everyone loves a winner.

Unfortunately for the Novocastrian faithful, winners around these parts have been too few and too far between for too long.

Between them, the Knights and Jets' men's teams have celebrated only one play-off victory since 2013.

That's a lot of lean years.

Looking on the bright side, their loss on January 1 leaves the Jets with 364 days to turn 2023 around.

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