The Magpies have not tasted victory in a top-flight fixture since way back in May, when they beat West Ham United at St James’ Park, meaning the much-maligned John Carver was the last man to lead the Magpies to three points.
And that’s a statistic which Steve McClaren will be keen to shake off sooner rather than later.
He won’t get a better chance than this to do it.
McClaren knew there was a lot of hard work to do when he took over the job back in June.
When pre-season started there were still some players in the doldrums, not only from last season but from seasons before that, and McClaren knows that even now he needs time to build up team spirit.
Wins are a superb remedy for that, and the visit of newly promoted Watford offers United a great chance to record that elusive top-tier win for the first time in almost four months.
What Newcastle fans don’t want to hear ahead of the game is: “Oh, but there are no easy wins in the Premier League these days.”
That sort of stuff sounds like making excuses before a ball has been kicked.
That’s certainly something you can say when you are sitting comfortably in the middle of the table, but when you are sitting at the bottom of the pile having spent £50m you really should be seeing off a team who were plying their trade in the Championship last term.
In the build-up to the game it was slightly worrying to hear Watford boss Quique Sanchez Flores splutter: “We must not underestimate Newcastle.”
Well, thanks for that because it seems like the rest of the country have spent the week doing exactly that! Back here on Tyneside, it seems that some players are actually overestimating how good they are.
There’s no problem with being confident in your ability in football, it’s hard to play the game without it.
But good players backup their big talk with bigperformances.
Some players at Newcastle think they are better than playing at St James’ Park and feel they are hard done by not to be playing for a bigger club.
Cheick Tiote seems to have had that attitude for a few years now, and Moussa Sissoko looks to have gone down the same path.
There are others too.
Sissoko has spoken about his desire to play in the Champions League, but he won’t get there playing like he did at West Ham.
We know that Papiss Cisse is also not happy about life at Newcastle, but that’s more down to the fact he’s been dropped too many times and when he does play the service coming his way is usually dreadful.
What most supporters would like to see this weekend is a performance which sees players showing they are simply good enough to play for Newcastle United first and foremost.