The new season is upon us. Understandably there are concerns, mainly based around the transfer window. People are worried that we haven’t done enough, while others around us have made good additions. That’s a valid concern, but let’s focus on the positives ahead of the new season.
Each day on X and Blue Sky, I’ll be posting a reason to be positive for Newcastle United’s 2024/25 campaign. This will end on Saturday when we play our first game of the season against Southampton. Due to the character limits, I will be expanding on each reason for the blog. The first is below.
Nick Pope’s return from injury
Due to the lack of first team signings (to date), it is difficult to point where we will be stronger this season in the starting eleven. However, the biggest improvement we will have is Nick Pope being available.
At the time of his injury against Manchester United, we were 5th in the Premier League. We had taken 26 points from 14 matches up until that point, with 14 goals conceded. Considering that we ended the season with 62 goals conceded, it is obvious how important Pope was to our team.
Since he joined the club from Burnley, Pope has played 52 times for us in the Premier League. In those matches, we average 1.9 points and 0.92 goals conceded. These are the types of numbers that we need if we are to challenge for the Champions League.
It is our defensive numbers without Pope that underline how good he is. Since he signed, we have played 24 matches in the Premier League without him. In those matches, we average 1.33 points and 1.9 goals conceded. It is a huge difference and it is fairly obvious that his injury derailed our season.
Pope is one of the best sweeper keepers in the Premier League. He averages 1.7 defensive actions outside of his penalty area per ninety minutes, which puts him in the 92nd percentile among goalkeepers. For context, Martin Dubravka averaged 0.95 and is only in the 45th percentile.
The deputy keeper last season didn’t have the same confidence when he left his penalty area and that indecision bled into the defence. Our defensive solidity was lost and there were countless examples of opposition attackers getting in behind our defence. That will be a lot more difficult with Pope in goal, due to his aggressive positioning and confidence outside of his area.
Going back to the stats discussed above, they suggest that we earned 13-14 fewer points and conceded 22-23 more goals due to Pope’s injury. Football isn’t played on spreadsheets and it wouldn’t have been that simple. The fatigue and injuries would still have been there, so Pope’s record would have got worse. However, it isn’t controversial to suggest we would have earned more points without his shoulder injury.
We finished three points behind the European places and eight points off the top four. If Pope had stayed fit, we would have been in the mix for the top four. Hopefully, this season, he will be able to play every Premier League match.
Stats taken from fbref (powered by Opta) and Understat
How many times did we hear the phrase “the keeper had nothing to do?” before December?
But not so many times after.
To blame Dubravka for our woes last season just shows a total lack of any kind of analytical ability, and even more worrying, a sorry lack of understanding of football.
Let me explain this for you.
Pope was injured early December.
Who is our best defender?
Botman? Botman was injured in Mid December. Missed the rest of the season.
Trippier? Missed 12 opportunities to play in front of Dubravka.
Schar? missed 6 games while Pope was out.
Livramento? Very capable. Missed 8 games
Targett? Probably not our best, but a solid replacement. Missed the entire season.
Joelinton? Contributes to our defence more than some of our defenders. Dubravka played 21 games without the Brazilian in front of him.
Miggy? Always helping out. Missed 8 games in 2024.
There was talk of us possibly asking for games to be rearranged because of a bug going through the camp in January decimating our squad.
Maybe, instead of just looking at the goals scored you could also look at the shots faced by each goalkeeper, and the saves made?
The fact that Dubs was in goal, and things didn’t go well just can not logically be blamed on his ability.
Oh, our dog broke his leg during that time, perhaps you want to blame him?
Or Greggs putting up the price of their cheese and onion pasties?
In 20/21 he was possibly the best keeper in the prem.
Up until his injury, Pope had had most of our first choice defenders available most of the time. Dubravka went out behind a bunch of squad players and kids.
Worst of all he gets criticised for not playing the same “style” as Pope. Ridiculous!
Do we criticise Isak for not playing the same style as Wilson?
We didn’t miss Pope last season. We missed the whole gamut of quality players who were injured at the same time as him.
BykerBill(Quote)