Stats - Some Half-Season Musings..

We’re halfway through what is slowly transpiring to be a ‘season of doom’ at Newcastle United. We’ve somehow accumulated 17 points from failings thus far, the lowest points total EVER (by 3 points) in a Premier League campaign, leaving us with around 23 points from our remaining 19 games to find. “How the f***?” you ask? Your guess is as good as mine!

Based on our collection of data over the course of the half season so far, here are some interesting(?) musings though…

Newcastle only win on Sundays! Well, almost. 3 of their 4 Premier League wins have landed on God’s day of rest so far.

Stay away from 3:00 kick offs! The Toon have lost all but one (drawn) of their 3 o’clock kick offs this season!

If the Mags are on telly, get yourself there! NUFC have lost 6 and drawn 2 of the 8 games they’ve played that haven’t been in front of the cameras – that’s 15 of their 17 points this season coming from games on BT and Sky!

They can’t keep the ball! In just 6 of the 17 games this season, NUFC have had the higher percentage of possession. However, of those games, we’ve picked up only 2 points! Possession, as they say, isn’t everything.

Their passing quality has regressed! In the first 6 games of the season, NUFC’s passing churned out some very pleasing results in terms of accuracy – 82%, 79%, 72%, 77%, 83%, 82%. On average, their pass success rate was nearly 80% over the first 10 games. Since then, we’re looking at closer to 70%, with 3 of the last 5 games being below 68%.

They don’t create chances! NUFC have created 135 chances this season so far, the 2nd fewest in the entire division. They’ve also mustered just 171 shots at goal – the actual fewest in the top flight.

Sissoko is indispensible! In 11 of the 19 Premier League games NUFC have played, the Frenchman has ended up as the top chance creator. He’s been top of the ‘crossing charts’ 5 times (joint top with Janmaat) and has been the top dribbler in 7 games, again the most of any other NUFC player.

This isn’t a half-season review – lets be honest, there’s only a handful of words needed to sum up how pathetic Newcastle United have been this season. It’s merely a bunch of eye-catching ‘throw-ups’ from the data we collect after every game. You can read more here.