Nick Pope – A message for those who were desperate for him to be replaced | OneFootball

Newcastle United kicking off their new season with Nick Pope in goal.

A 1-0 win over Southampton despite having to play for 73 minutes a man down.

That clean sheet earning Newcastle United a very important, some would say absolutely essential, three points.

Nick Pope in goal.

A coincidence? I don’t think so.

For me, Nick Pope is easily one of the best and most important Newcastle United players, indeed maybe the very best and very most important.

Just look at what happened last season without him!

It all seems a bit surreal and very bizarre, at least to me.

However, it is absolutely true that last season in the early months of the 2023/24 campaign, when Nick Pope was playing every match and before he got injured, a very vocal minority of Newcastle United fans were insistent that he had to be replaced.

Indeed, I just came across this article from 27 November 2023, ironically only five days before Nick Pope picked up that shattering injury late in the win against Manchester United.

To save the author’s embarrassment I won’t name him, but that article was entitled ‘James Trafford the new number one and Nick Pope as back up looks good to me’…

This is part of that late November 2023 article:

‘Nick Pope is not and has not become a bad keeper and I still have confidence in him for the rest of the season. Despite his shortcomings…. However, we need to progress and I don’t think we can if he remains between the sticks in the longer term.

Having wor Nick as back up to James Trafford next (2024/25) season seems like a good place to be.’

Quite astonishing. Not in a good way.

These bizarre Nick Pope over the top critics were desperate for him to be replaced by somebody who was better with their feet when in possession.

Hmmm.

Personally, I have always liked goalkeepers who are good at keeping that round thing out of the Newcastle United net.

At the point that article was written, Nick Pope had started the first 13 Premier League games of the 2023/24 season and conceded 14 goals. That became 14 goals conceded in 15 PL starts with the clean sheet against Man U on 2 December 2023. The final Nick Pope stat was 16 goals conceded in 15 PL matches in the 2023/24 season, when Pope returned for the 4-2 win at Brentford on the final day of the season (in the other 23 NUFC Premier League games last season, Newcastle conceded another 46 goals).

Bringing things bang up to date, Nick Pope has now started 53 Premier League matches for Newcastle United and conceded 48 goals.

If any Newcastle United fans don’t by now know the true value of Nick Pope, then you never will.

As for all of those Newcastle United fans who were convinced that James Trafford was a very obvious choice to come in and replace Nick Pope to kick off this season…

Well, he arrived in the north east this weekend.

No, he is not in the north east to sign for Newcastle United and replace Nick Pope, as those daft NUFC critics were demanding.

Instead he was playing second tier football and picking the ball out of the back of the net as Burnley lost to Sunderland.

Nick Pope, arguably Eddie Howe’s very best signing so far, look at what other top clubs spend on goalkeepers, absolute fortunes, yet England international Pope only £10m back in summer 2022.