Graeme Souness believes Newcastle United have been overly reliant on Callum Wilson this season.
The Magpies have been largely poor throughout this campaign, despite their recent upturn in performances and results.
Steve Bruce was without key attackers Wilson, Miguel Almiron and Allan Saint-Maximin for a crucial part of the season, though.
The former of the trio, Wilson, is the club's top goal scorer this season - with the ex-Bournemouth striker netting 10 times in the top-flight since his arrival at St. James' Park last summer.
Souness, when speaking on Sky Sports, claimed that Bruce has been too reliant on the English striker.
“I think survival with that group is as good as they could have hoped for," the former Magpies boss said.
"I did say in the first game of the season when Callum Wilson joined, and scored at West Ham, that it was important they kept him fit because he will get goals for them.
"I’d seen a lot of him at Bournemouth and when he’s fit and firing, he’s a handful for anyone, but they’re too reliant on him. The other striker they’ve got, Joelinton, he ain’t going to get you goals, Almiron isn’t going to get you goals, so that’s why I’m saying, at the start of the season you have to prepare for the worst case scenario.
"Steve Bruce, if he’s there again next year, he’ll be looking at that closely.
"Goals make a difference, they win you games, but they make a difference to the way you play when you’re scoring goals.
"If you’re not playing too well but you’re getting someone scoring you goals, then everyone starts to think quicker and move the ball quicker.”
Souness was also very complimentary of Newcastle, but claimed it was "typical" of them to do it "the hard way".
“They’ve shown real resilience," he added.
"It’s so typical of Newcastle doing it the hard way. When you get to the end of the season and you’ve got so many games left and you know you have to get so many points from those games to stay up, the pressure mounts, especially at that club.
"I’ve got some experience of working there. So, they’ve done it the hard way, which is a real pat on the back, but most of the fans are saying why did it take, more or less down to the wire to get them into that situation.
"Everyone gets injuries, we were talking about Liverpool earlier at the other end of the table and why they’ve not won it.
"Everybody goes through a period of injuries and that’s why you have a squad of players and that’s why you always assume things will go wrong when you’re a manager - you build a squad knowing that during the next nine months that it can go wrong.
"They’ve done very well, but every Newcastle supporter will be saying: ‘typical us, we’ve done it the hard way again’.
"If you get relegated in this league then you deserve to go down but if you stay up, the way they’ve done it, it is the hard way then they deserve to stay up."
