Newcastle United and the case for the defence | OneFootball

Interesting times once again at Newcastle United.

A win against West Ham would see Eddie Howe’s side move to within one point of third and two points adrift of second.

A very open looking Premier League this season.

Liverpool the only one really to show much consistency so far and as well as carrying a lot of luck in many tight games, they have managed to now find themselves eight points clear of second, despite having the same players as last season and playing a decent standard, but not outstanding.

I know it is stating the obvious to say that to finish towards the very top, you need to score goals.

However, how many you concede is obviously key as well.

Last season (2023/24), Man City won the league and conceded 34, Arsenal runners up and conceded 29, whilst Liverpool third and conceding 41.

The next lowest number of goals conceded last season was 58, fully 17 more than the top trio and indeed 24 and 29 more than the top two.

As for the 2022/23 season, I’m sure you will remember that nobody conceded fewer goals than Newcastle United.

Only the champions Man City equalled the 33 NUFC conceded as Eddie Howe’s side finished fourth.

Arsenal and Man U made up the top four two seasons ago and they had the next lowest totals conceded.

A bit of a pattern building up here…

Now fast forward to the here and now, this is the Premier League table on Monday morning:

As you can see, no coincidence that Liverpool have had the tightest defence so far, with only eight goals conceded.

Whilst very quietly having crept into second place on the defensive front, you have Newcastle United with 11 conceded, with West Ham at St James’ Park tonight.

Indeed, if you include the cup matches, it is 14 matches played this season by Newcastle United and only 12 goals in total conceded.

The most recent seven matches (all competitions) have seen only four goals conceded, with Newcastle United also keeping four clean sheets in these seven games.

Whilst it has been a much-changed back four compared to 2022/23, one thing hasn’t changed.

The superb Nick Pope conceded only 32 goals in 37 Premier League starts that 2022/23 season.

Whilst it is only 11 goals conceded in 11 Premier League matches this season for the number one NUFC keeper.

Actually, whilst it was a far higher 62 PL goals conceded last season, that came about largely due to the worst season ever for injuries in Newcastle’s entire history. However, despite that, Nick Pope actually only conceded 14 goals in the opening 14 Premier League goals last season (plus two more in the very final game, a 4-2 win at Brentford).

Nick Pope has now started 63 Premier League matches for Newcastle United and conceded 59 goals, that is an average of 0.93 goals conceded per match.

To put that into perspective, since Pope arrived at St James’ Park, the 24 PL games he hasn’t started, Newcastle have conceded 46 goals. At an average of 1.91 goals per PL game.

To have achieved these defensive stats this season so far, is especially impressive, considering Newcastle are missing arguably their very best defender in Sven Botman. Dan Burn has had to move into the middle, you have had Fabian Schar picking up a three game suspension, injuries to Trippier, Targett and Lascelles, whilst two exciting but very inexperienced full-backs who are only going to get better and better.

Successful seasons are invariably built on a solid defence.