After last night’s 3-2 defeat at Stamford Bridge, Sky Sports flagged up an alarming set of Newcastle stats on Monday Night Football.
It was noted that we’ve now conceded more goals away from home than any other Premier League side, but the comparisons before and after Nick Pope’s injury were pretty shocking. See them in full below:
As you can see via the graphic above, we had the second best defence in the league in the opening 14 games with Pope in goal, conceding 14 in that time. In the 14 games since his injury, we have the second worst defence, conceding 34.
The fact we’ve conceded three or more in eight of our 14 games without Pope is a huge concern. It’s not all down to his absence – Joelinton is a huge loss and it’s clear Sven Botman isn’t himself after a serious knee injury – but these numbers must improve over the next month or two if we want to push our way back into European contention.
Watch what Jamie Carragher had to say about us below, feeling we no longer look like that high-intensity, all action side he loved last season and discussing the huge gaps between our midfield and back line:
"It looks like a team almost ready for the end of the season" 🙄@carra23 isn't pleased with how Newcastle are playing 👇 pic.twitter.com/JrqFkGnlvS
— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) March 11, 2024
Olly – I’m pleased you didn’t fall into the trap of just seeing it as a keeper problem mate 👍🏼.
It’s such a major drop off, it needs drastically addressing otherwise forget European football, we’ll be lucky to get a top half finish.
Sharpy17(Quote)
This season which had so much promise is now a write off, yes we have had injuries but the back four have been so undisciplined it’s been a hard watch, midfield has offered no support to forwards or the defence on too many occasions, sometimes we don’t turn up.
Almiron and Longstaff have been consistently awful.
Only Livramento and Miley with glimpses of Isak and Gordon have looked up to the task.
Roll on next season.
Joseph(Quote)
Roll on next new uphill task to salvage this season would love Europe again but I think its time to regroup and figure out what got us going since 2022 and 2023 because unfortunately 2024 hasn’t been good enough,was always going to be tough with amount of games and injuries but we are not the only ones, this is what happens when you mix it with the big boys
MR MARTIN SOUTER(Quote)