Looking on the bright side of Newcastle United
At the beginning of a new year, it’s always a good time to remind oneself that there is hope for everyone. That each of us has the space and capacity to grow, to learn, to evolve, to strengthen, to become a truer or better version of ourselves. Even football teams who haven’t scored in six of their last seven games.
Things may not look particularly good for Newcastle United right now, but there’s light at the mouth of the Tyne. Despite the single solitary goal in seven matches, the run will come to an end, and there are signs of how this team could eke more out of their attack.
Steve Bruce’s side haven’t been completely bereft of the quality to create good chances this season. Their goals have tended to come from high-value opportunities; the Magpies have created and converted three shots inside the six-yard box in the 2020/21 campaign.
While square balls into the six-yard box make up one chunk of Newcastle’s assists, the other major percentage of them seems to be via long or through balls from within the width of the penalty area. Improving their fortunes isn’t as simple as ‘just make more of these passes’ of course, but it’s striking how different things look for their shot assists where the chances didn’t become goals.
This map is overwhelmingly crossing-based, and the passes from the width of the penalty area are both sparser and going into wider areas.
This map also highlights that Bruce’s side haven’t left a single high-quality chance (that’s been directly set up with a pass) on the table. That may go some way to explaining how they’ve managed to stay above the relegation fray for so long.
The reasons why the second map is so full of crosses while the first, actual assists, has a very different type of pass is understandable. Primarily, chances delivered to players feet in the middle of the box are better opportunities. But they’re harder to come by, and Newcastle are usually set up in ways that will lead to crosses.
If Newcastle were to try boosting those high-value passes, though, how might they do it? It’s no use telling them to completely revamp a team that also has the constraints of player talent and, crucially, needing to defend, but could they boost what they’re already doing?
Most of the Magpies’ passes into the box that aren’t crosses or launches are focused on the right side, just off-centre.
This area seems to be the one that they’re able to get to the most in their current set-up. However, a lot of the passes from that area into the box go outwards; skirting around the goal, not towards it. The one assist that came from a pass in that area was more direct.
Any change to a team’s attack at this stage of the season would have to be specific and focused. These visualisations suggest that a tweak that could be implemented is to work on movement to receive passes that are made from that right-hand channel area.
Newcastle’s attack already has some talented players involved in it, in Callum Wilson, Miguel Almirón, and Jonjo Shelvey, with Allan Saint-Maximin unfortunately not yet back after suffering from Covid-19. With some small adjustments, the Magpies could be back amongst the goals soon.
All the graphics and visualisations in this article use Wyscout data and were produced in the Twenty3 Toolbox.
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