Tight defence and savvy buys behind Newcastle’s success
Newcastle United secured a spot in next season’s Champions League for the first time in 20 years after the goalless draw with Leicester City on Monday.
The point means the thirdplaced Magpies are four points clear of Liverpool, in fifth, heading into the final weekend of the Premier League season.
At the start of 2022, Newcastle looked set for relegation from the Premier League, now they will be playing in European club football’s elite competition.
We take a look at how they managed it.
Case for the defence
Newcastle’s success has been built from the back with only champions Manchester City (31) conceding fewer than the 32 goals the Magpies have leaked over in their 37 games so far.
While manager Eddie Howe has tinkered with other areas of his side throughout the campaign, the defensive unit of Kieran Trippier, Fabian Schar, Sven Botman and Dan Burn – in front of goalkeeper Nick Pope – has remained largely untouched.
Full-backs Trippier and Burn have played 36 of 37 league games each, as has Pope, while centre-backs Schar and Botman have both appeared 34 times.
This stability has enabled Newcastle to become a formidable defensive outfit and incredibly hard to break down, only conceding more than two goals in a game twice all season – when Manchester City and Aston Villa managed to find the back of Pope’s net three times.
It is not by accident that Trippier has been nominated for Premier League Player of the Season award while Botman is on the shortlist for the Young Player award.
Playing the market
There can be no denying the financial backing of the club’s Saudi Arabian owners has been a key factor in the club’s remarkable turnaround from one end of the table to the other. But what also cannot be argued with is how wisely the £250 million-plus has been spent in the transfer market since the new owners arrived in October 2021.
The arrivals of Trippier, Chris Wood, Burn, Matty Targett and Bruno Guimaraes in the 2022 January transfer window helped lift the club from the bottom three to mid-table security within five months.
Last summer, the squad was strengthened with the signings of Pope, Botman and striker Alexander Isak – the latter for a club-record fee of around £60 million – while Anthony Gordon joined from Everton in January.
Only David de Gea at Manchester United (17) has kept more clean sheets than Pope’s 14, while Botman’s superb form has earned him a callup to the senior Netherlands squad. After an injury-hit start to the season, Swedish striker Isak quickly found his feet, scoring 10 goals in 20 games and was nominated alongside teammate Botman for the Premier League Young Player of the Season.
The jury is still out on £45 million winger Gordon but Howe has no doubt that the best is yet to come. “I can’t wait to get a pre-season with him because that will be a game-changer for him because we can really get him integrated into our system of play,” Howe said last week.
Revitalising the old guard
Success in the transfer market is one thing, but what Howe has managed to coax from players he inherited is testament to his managerial and coaching skills.
Swiss defender Schar had fallen out of favour with previous manager Steve Bruce but has become a mainstay of Howe’s defence and his partnership with Botman one of the most reliable in the league.
Joelinton – once a laughing-stock striker who could not score – is now a monster boxto-box midfielder, while local boy Sean Longstaff – another who rarely played under Bruce – has become a vital cog in the engine room of Howe’s team.
Paraguayan winger Miguel Almiron has reached double-figures in goals (11) for the first time since moving to the club in 2019, including a red-hot streak of seven in seven games before the season stalled for the Qatar World Cup.
Up front, striker Callum Wilson has enjoyed a prolific end to the season, scoring 11 times in as many games to take his tally to 18 in 29 matches – his highest top-flight total.