Incredible Newcastle United red cards curse beginning to lift? All hail VAR

Newcastle United’s relationship with red cards in the Premier League has been an astonishing and inexplicable one.

Going into Saturday’s match at Southampton, there had been 22 red cards shown in Newcastle’s Premier League matches since January 2014.

Now on Sunday morning it is 23 red cards shown in NUFC matches since January 2014.

This season had seen three red cards in Newcastle’s Premier League matches; Hayden at Leicester, Sean Longstaff home to Wolves, then Lazaro at Palace. None for opposition players.

However, that all changed yesterday as referee Graham Scott gave Moussa Djenepo a yellow card, only for VAR to have a word in his ear and after a quick look at a pitchside monitor it became red. That VAR decision arguably also handing Newcastle the three points.

If only VAR had been around these past five or six years…

Even with Saturday’s red card, the past 23 red cards in NUFC Premier League games have seen 21 shown to Newcastle players and only 2 to opposition players.

They say luck/decisions even out…but if we’d had VAR, how many of these red cards listed below might not have happened and how many might opposition players have been given, that got away with them on the day?

I am well aware that there might of course have been extra ones for NUFC players as well if VAR had been in use but I refuse to believe that the score on red cards could have been quite so bad as 21 v 2 if VAR had been in operation.

The recent scoreline is 3 v 2 against Newcastle United so at least an improvement on 18 straight NUFC PL red cards!

Red cards in Newcastle’s Premier League matches since 28 January 2014:

Southampton 0 Newcastle 1 (Moussa Djenepo – Southampton) – 7 March 2020

Palace 1 Newcastle 0 (Valentino Lazaro) – 22 February 2020

Newcastle 1 Wolves 1 (Sean Longstaff) – 27 October 2019

Leicester 5 Newcastle 0 (Isaac Hayden) – 29 September 2019

Newcastle 2 Huddersfield 0 (Tommy Smith – Huddersfield) 23 February 2019

Newcastle 1 Wolves 2 (DeAndre Yedlin) – 9 December 2018

Cardiff 0 Newcastle 0 (Isaac Hayden) – 18 August 2018

Newcastle 0 Everton 1 (Jonjo Shelvey) – 13 December 2017

Newcastle 0 Tottenham 2 (Jonjo Shelvey) – 13 August 2017

Newcastle 5 Tottenham 1 (Aleksandar Mitrovic) – 15 May 2016

Newcastle 0 Everton 3 (Jamaal Lascelles) – 3 February 2016

Sunderland 3 Newcastle 0 (Fabricio Coloccini) – 25 October 2015

Newcastle 0 Arsenal 1 (Aleksandar Mitrovic) – 29 August 2015

Swansea 2 Newcastle 0 (Daryl Janmaat) – 15 August 2015

Leicester 3 Newcastle 0 (Mike Williamson) – 2 May 2015

Leicester 3 Newcastle 0 (Daryl Janmaat) – 2 May 2015

Liverpool 2 Newcastle 0 (Moussa Sissoko) – 13 April 2015

Everton 3 Newcastle 0 (Fabricio Coloccini) – 15 March 2015

Newcastle 2 Chelsea 1 (Steven Taylor) – 6 December 2014

West Ham 1 Newcastle 0 (Moussa Sissoko) – 29  November 2014

Aston Villa 0 Newcastle 0 (Mike Williamson) – 23 August 2014

Liverpool 2 Newcastle 1 (Shola Ameobi) – 11 May 2014

Liverpool 2 Newcastle 1 (Paul Dummett) – 11 May 2014