Andros Townsend claims Newcastle’s players are ready for ‘eight cup finals’ as they battle to stave off relegation from the Premier League this season.

The 24-year-old was taken out of Tottenham’s scrap to win the Premier League title and thrown into a relegation fight when Steve McClaren paid out £12million to take him to St James’ Park in the January transfer window.

Townsend has so far been unable to help the Magpies get the desired results to pull them out of the drop zone and that resulted in McClaren paying with his job earlier this month.

Rafael Benitez was appointed as his successor and he has so far picked up one point from two games at the helm, which was in a 1-1 Tyne-Wear derby draw against fellow strugglers Sunderland before the international break.

Newcastle now sit in 19th position, three points behind fourth-bottom Norwich with a game in hand as the two sides will go head-to-head in a massive game at Carrow Road this Saturday.

Ahead of it, Townsend said: “You could have said the derby was the biggest one of all time. Now, it’s Norwich and that’s the biggest game of our careers. Then it’ll be the game after that.

“We have eight cup finals to come and we need to treat them like that. We need to start picking up points sooner rather than later.”

He added: “Getting Rafa Benitez to come to Newcastle just shows how big the club is. He’s won everything around the world and managed the best players, so it can only be a positive for us.

“We can stay up this season and we can keep one of the best managers at Newcastle.”

Newcastle are 3.40 to win at Norwich, while the hosts are 2.30 to ease their relegation fears with a victory and the draw is 3.20.