Eddie Howe’s tenure and really the entire Newcastle project seemed to be teetering early this season. They were 5 games without a win after a transfer period where they were forced to sell two young talents (including core prospect Elliot Anderson) and there was backroom drama that Howe clearly felt negatively about. The team was coming off of a somewhat mediocre season and a step back as a club in 23/24. The dream of Newcastle establishing themselves as one of the “Big Clubs” looked pretty far away.
A big reason they were just a fringy European contender last year and struggled to start this year had a lot to do with the wide open spaces opponents exploited after turnovers. Last year they were one of the worst teams in the league after a live-ball possession change. No team in the league allowed a higher % of takeaways to be turned into shots than Newcastle. Only Villa allowed a higher completion% total, showing this was not some reckless pressing strategy just a total lack of resistance. Off of opponents turnovers they were below average at generating shots and about average at keeping the ball.
This season started quite similarly: opponents were 4th in the league in shot generation and 5th in the league in completion % after a Newcastle turnover. Fragility after ball loss and inability to punish opponents in the same situations (13th and 12th in same categories) had continued and the results and performances were not even in the CL conversation.
Suddenly they have become one of the best in these situations, and with that they’ve become a team playing right at a CL level outside of one horrific game vs Palace
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Only one team has increased their shot generation off of takeaways more in the last 10 games compared to the first 10 games than Newcastle. They’ve gone from 13th in ability to generate shots off takeaways to 3rd.
Newcastle have gone from the dreaded bottom left of the graph (home to Wolves, Leicester, Ipswich and West Ham) to the potent top right (hope to Chelsea, Liverpool and Spurs/Villa to start the year). They are now terrifying after winning the ball back.
It’s the exact same story (except even more so) on the defensive side of the ball. There they also have had the second best improvement, going from 17th to 4th. Only Arsenal’s bully ball tactic set up essentially primarily and only to stop these kind of situations wind up above Newcastle.
Here the teams have moved a lot more (a reminder defensive stats generally feel much more out of a teams control and are broadly more opponent dependent). However they have moved from the top right quadrant (home to Saints, Ipswich, West Ham and Leicester) and toward the bottom middle of the chart alongside Liverpool and Forest. They are in much better neighborhoods overall. And while they started the season in run-down neighborhoods, last year they were in shanties with homeless out front. Where they are now looks like Zürich compared to where they were at the end of last season.
Who is triggering the attack?
Off of takeaways, Bruno Guimaraes has been outstanding as Newcastle has come alive. Only Martin Odegaard has as many dangerous pass completions/take ons in these situations over the past 3 months as Bruno. Odegaard and both Bruno’s are like 50% ahead of the field.
The superpower of the Newcastle attack here is you have five runners (all in the top 20 of best receivers in these situations recently) in Murphy, Bruno, Joelinton, Gordon and Isak.
Look at four examples of the team pouring forward here.
A key change
Bruno Guimaraes has pushed higher up the pitch over the past 10 games (as can be seen in that video and the advanced receiving stats). With Tonali sliding in deeper, Bruno’s defensive actions have come nearly 8 yards closer to goal over the past 10 games than they did in the early part of the season. The lineup with Bruno ahead of Tonali instead of Bruno alongside or behind with Longstaff has been much more effective.
Jacob Murphy has been effective receiving the ball as an outlet and also contributes about 25% as many defensive actions as Harvey Barnes did as well.
The mix of players and performances feels just about right now for Newcastle and this aspect of the game is flying and their Champions League hopes look realistic for the first since very early on in the 2023/24 season. Eddie Howe, long one of the clear best coaches at developing players (see: Joelinton, Trippier, Isak, Gordon, Almiron, Lascelles, Murphy, Hall, etc) seems to have figured something big out over the past 10 weeks. The schedule has possibly helped but a club that looked a bit lost has surged back and seems to be on the right path again. A good Newcastle competing with your Manchester United’s, Tottenham’s and Chelsea’s makes the league an overall much better competition to follow. If they can keep this up, they are right there.