With Newcastle bottom of these stats it is time for major improvement
Football is a simple game, you try to score as many goals as possible, whilst at the same time restricting the opposition to as few as possible.
Sometimes you get freak results where pretty much all your shots fly into the net, whilst similarly you have those days where the opposition goal leads a charmed life.
Over the course of a season though, if you have more shots than the opposition then you win more matches than you lose.
After the opening set of matches, these are the bottom six clubs in terms of shots at goal, according to Opta:
33 West Brom
29 Everton
28 West Ham
28 Stoke
26 Sunderland
17 Newcastle
Note, these aren’t shots on target, simply all shots – whether on targetĀ or not.
United haven’t had the easiest fixtures and then made things even more difficult by adding two red cards to the mix.
However, I do think that there is a lot of room for improvement in terms of a more attacking formation and certain players taking more responsibility in both creating and getting on the end of chances.
The hope/expectation must be that after the next two fixtures against West Ham and Watford there is a marked improvement, especially in terms of chances created.
As last season proved, without creativity and a significant goal threat, you have serious problems.
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