Tim Krul Equals Seven Year Record

A great result for Newcastle United at White Hart Lane, and a spirited team performance, but it was one individual who really took the honours.

Tim Krul now looks as though he is at last fully recovered from his injury problems of last season and his display against Spurs must surely be at least the equivalent of a striker scoring a hat-trick.

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The stats for the game make astonishing reading and simply underline how good the Dutch keeper was yesterday.

Over the 90 minutes Spurs had (according to BBC Sport stats);

65% possession compared to Newcastle’s 35%
11 corners to Newcastle’s 4
31 shots to Newcastle’s 8
14 on target to Newcastle’s 4

That last statistic is incredible, it wasn’t just the quantity of shots on target but the quality of the chances as well.

The 14 saves that Tim Krul made is the most in any Premier League match in seven years, right back to the 2006/07 season.

I don’t think there is any other sport where that kind of dominance of both possession and shots on target wouldn’t lead to a victory for the dominant team.

It is what makes football the best and worst of sports for the fans, one team can do just about everything right but they come up against a quality keeper like Tim Krul on one of his ‘better’ days.