Newcastle United star Andros Townsend believes it is crazy that their talented squad are set to be relegated this season, according to report from the Mirror.

Townsend was only signed from Tottenham Hotspur in the January transfer window, and along with several other additions, made it a total of £80million spent this season.

However, the Magpies have struggled for any consistency and form in the current campaign, which sees them in 19th six points from safety following their 3-2 loss to Norwich City this past weekend.

And Townsend is shocked by their predicament, believing that their results do not reflect the amount of quality the side possesses.

He said: “For me, it’s mad that we are where we are. We’ve got in incredible squad full of internationals and it’s crazy that we are in this position, but it’s up to other people to judge why that’s happened.

“Our results don’t reflect the quality we’ve got within the squad. If anything, it’s the opposite. If you look around the dressing room and see the players we’ve got, you wouldn’t believe the situation we’re in.

“Other teams have got out of similar predicaments, so it’s not an impossible position - but we are running out of chances and we have to do something about it quickly.

“Did I sign up for this? It’s difficult to say what I thought would happen when I signed. Obviously, there were a lot more games left when I arrived and we were a lot more positive.

“But this season, as we have seen, anything can happen and we need character now, we need the senior players to stand up and be counted to drag us out of this situation.”

Former Real Madrid manager Rafa Benitez was appointed last month in a last ditch effort to save the Toon Army from the drop, and even he is surprised by their recent under-par performances.

Benitez said: “Normally in football, or any competition, pressure is the difference.

"When you have quality, you manage the pressure.

"We know we have the quality to play better, but if you are making mistakes the pressure becomes greater, and that is the difficult thing to manage.

“You cannot change everything every week because then the players will be thinking, ‘What’s going on?’ But if we play at the level we showed in the second half, we can beat a lot of Premier League teams.

“My job now is to lift them.

"Their reaction (to falling behind) was quite positive but we have to be more consistent and play like this for 90 minutes, not just the second half.”

Newcastle will travel to the Saint Mary’s to face Southampton in their next Premier League fixture.

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