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Premier League clubs – New report on defensive records sees Newcastle United top in 5 of 6 metrics

1 year ago
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When it comes to Premier League clubs and defending this season.

Eddie Howe has understandably won many plaudits.

Indeed, it isn’t just this season, the second half of the 2021/22 PL season saw a startling improvement.

With a very limited budget, Rafa Benitez was forced to rely on the defensive side of things and did a top notch job. In both the 2017/18 and 2019/19 seasons, only six Premier League clubs conceded less than Newcastle United.

Under Steve Bruce, it was a shambles.

From conceding only 47 and 48 goals in Rafa’s two full NUFC PL seasons, Bruce’s Newcastle side then conceded 58 and 62 in his two full league seasons.

Things sunk to a new low when in the opening eight PL matches of 2021/22, Bruce’s team conceded 19 goals, an average which over a full season would have seen 90 (NINETY!!!) goals conceded.

Once Eddie Howe got an understanding of what was needed, the second half of last season saw only 20 goals conceded in the final 19 PL matches. Indeed, if you take out the two big off days (for the NUFC defence) at Spurs and Man City, where five goals were conceded both times, only 10 were conceded in the other 17 Newcastle matches in the second half of last season.

However, when it comes to Premier League clubs and defending, Eddie Howe and his team have been on a totally different level.

As this new report / analysis from SportingPedia shows:

As you can see, Newcastle United are top in five of the six metrics.

Number of clean sheets – 12.

Fewest goals conceded – 11.

Percentage of games with a clean sheet – 60%.

Average number of shots on target needed to score against your team – 5.9

Average goals conceded per game – 0.55.

The only exception is shots on target faced.

Nick Pope facing 65 shots, whilst the Man City and Arsenal keepers have faced 53 and 59 shots on target respectively.

An outstanding effort all round from Eddie Howe, his coaching staff and the players.

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