The spread of goals for Newcastle United and rest of top six – Advantage/Disadvantage?
As you are probably aware, Newcastle have scored more goals than any other Championship club and have the current individual top scorer.
However, is there too much of a reliance on Dwight Gayle when compared to other clubs in the top six?
Taking away the top scorer of each team, you have Gouffran next best with four for Newcastle, whilst second placed Brighton have Knockaert with seven supporting their main striker Glenn Murray (14). Sheffield Wednesday have joint top scorers with six each, then one on five and another on four – though those four between them have scored 21 of their 26 goals.
Maybe the biggest strength of Newcastle is that in terms of backing up the main goalscorer, United have six other players who have scored three or more Championship goals this season.
This compares to Brighton’s three, Reading four, Huddersfield two, Leeds two and Sheffield Wednesday three.
So for Rafa Benitez it is really a case of more goals and more goalscorers, than their competitors so far in these 22 matches that have gone by.
As a comparison, in the 2009/10 promotion season Newcastle scored 90 goals and four players scored 57 of them – Carroll 17, Nolan 17, Lovenkrands 13, Shola 10.
Interesting to see who ends up second to Gayle, plus of course whether a new goal threat is brought in for the second half of the season…and as a potential asset in the Premier League next season.
Newcastle (45 goals)
17 Dwight Gayle
4 Yoan Gouffran
3 Ayoze Perez, Aleksandar Mitrovic, Matt Ritchie, Christian Atsu, Jonjo Shelvey
2 Ciaran Clark, Mohamed Diame
1 Grant Hanley, Isaac Hayden, Jamaal Lascelles, DeAndre Yedlin
(Plus one OG)
(The other top six clubs, players listed who have scored three or more goals)
Brighton (35)
14 Glenn Murray
7 Anthony Knockaert
5 Sam Baldock
3 Tomer Hemed
Reading (30)
7 Gareth McCleary
4 Roy Beerens
4 Yann Kermogant
3 John Swift
3 Danny Williams
Huddersfield (26)
8 Elias Kachunga
5 Nahki Wells
3 Kasey Palmer
Leeds (26)
11 Chris Wood
3 Kyle Bartley
3 Souleymane Doukara
Sheff Wed (26)
6 Steven Fletcher
6 Fernando Forestieri
5 Gary Hooper
4 Kieran Lee
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