Without wanting to sound like I’m joining the Steve Bruce witch hunt, it’s fair to say that there’s a considerable amount of pressure on our manager at the moment.
This is for good reason – it’s now emerged that he boasts the second lowest win percentage of any Newcastle manager over the last 20 years.
His win rate at Newcastle has been totalled at 33.3%, with us winning just 16 of our 48 games since Bruce has been at the helm.
It’s worrying , but it’s even more concerning when you delve a bit deeper.
Since Bruce has taken charge, we’ve won 5 games against lower league opposition in the cups – meaning only 11 of his wins have come against Premier League opposition.
Two of these wins also came against Premier League sides with ten men on the field for the majority of the game – Sheffield United at home in June and Southampton away in July.
And then it’s scary to remember how many times we’ve been ‘lucky’ enough to steal the three points. He insisted yesterday in a defiant press conference that it’s ‘insulting’ to say he’s been lucky, but he has. For example, we were truly awful against Chelsea at home last season before robbing the win at the death with an Isaac Hayden header. There’s also been several occasions where we’ve snuck wins in games we deserved to draw at best via late goals from defenders!
We’re 10th in the table and into the cup quarter finals, but the underlying stats are slowly starting to stack up against Steve Bruce. We’re evidently riding our look and grinding our results (look no further than Spurs and Newport!) and it’s not a sustainable plan of action.
I can only imagine his win rate gets worse if he continues to play the same way, so let’s hope he can respond in the perfect way with a much improved performance and big three points against Burnley tonight!
Follow us on Twitter (@NUFCBlogcouk) and on Facebook HERE
I know the point of the article is to highlight how badly Bruce has performed – but stats like this doesn’t tell the full story to be fair.
I think it’s worth remembering that Hughton was in the Championship for a lot of his games.
Rafa also spent a season in the championship too.
Bruce came in and lost his frontline completely in Rondon & Perez and spent last season trying to rebuild with a young inexperienced Joelinton who isn’t a CF, and a bunch of sicknotes behind him.
On the flip side, and I know he’s bottom, but I don’t think that reflects just how badly McClaren did with a very decent squad.
Keegan was backed and had the players Ashley’s managers could only dream of.
But when you consider what Sir Bobby inherited, I don’t think his stats reflect just what an unbelievable job he did.
Sharpy17(Quote)
That’s a fair point.
I do think that it’s very valid to factor in how many generous cup draws Bruce has been given (therefore beating lower league opposition), combined with the fact quite a few of his wins were very lucky.
I just fear for us when his luck runs out. It’s poor as it is, but the fear is it could only get worse if we look at the stats, XG and how often we get away with it.
Hopefully that’s balanced out by the new signings gelling and us settling into this new formation – not that we’ll do that quickly if Bruce keeps changing his team every week / going back to a 5 in defence as soon as we play a top 8 side.
Olly Hawkins(Quote)
Nowt will change Bruce is to big headed and if we do go down he will blame the fans
Ricky(Quote)
Another example of cherry picking stats to try make a point.
If you removed Championship games from the equation and used only Prem games the percentages change hugely.
Hughton drops down a few percentage points, as does Keegan
Rafa for example goes down to 33% – below Bruce.
Ironically I think I read on these pages long ago – the only stats that count are goals for and goals against, and even then just on a match by match basis.
BykerBill(Quote)
Maybe someone should do a stats table on Newcastle players who have came in. Compared with how they ranked at their previous club. Maybe it’s the players who’s backs we should be getting on. The players are the ones showing no passion or pride.
Danny(Quote)
What is it with this club, they buy nineteen and twenty year olds, and then put them in the under 23’s, regardless if they have been playing in the first team for their relevant clubs. We put them in the under 23’s for a couple of seasons and then sell them on, it’s the same as the academy players they deserve to be given a chance. I suppose what I’m trying. To say if you’re good enough your old enough. Instead we go out buy mediocre players never giving our under 23’s a chance. I’m pissed off with the club saying here’s one for the future it’s just bull.How many have come through long staffs apart.
Paul Estebanez(Quote)
Very difficult to make comparisons between managers who worked under different owners. Keegan was very well supported, he spent a fortune but spent it well. Most of Chris Hughtons time was spent in the Championship when we were winning, Rafa’s time mainly in the Premier League after promotion- always going to be difficult for a newly promoted side when little investment was made. Can’t explain Souness at 5 – one of the worst in my 50+ years of supporting the club!
Douglas Sweeney(Quote)
He won 11 Pl games last season and one so far this season so 12 in total not 11, the lad makes a good point about Hughton and Rafa in the c’ship, what’s Rafas percentage in the Pl? Can’t be any better than SB surely??
Jon(Quote)