By Tony Attwood
Most commentators on next season, speak of Newcastle United’s rise, but because they refuse to use any statistics to analyse the position, feel that Newcastle are not going to rise that far. Mind you they also don’t comment on the issue of where the money is coming from and what it says about Newcastle’s attitude toward human rights.
On 1 January the league table saw them doomed.
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15 | Everton | 17 | 5 | 4 | 8 | 21 | 29 | -8 | 19 |
| 16 | Leeds United | 18 | 3 | 7 | 8 | 18 | 36 | -18 | 16 |
| 17 | Watford | 18 | 4 | 1 | 13 | 22 | 36 | -14 | 13 |
| 18 | Burnley | 16 | 1 | 8 | 7 | 15 | 24 | -9 | 11 |
| 19 | Newcastle United | 19 | 1 | 8 | 10 | 19 | 42 | -23 | 11 |
| 20 | Norwich City | 19 | 2 | 4 | 13 | 8 | 42 | -34 | 10 |
They then spent £91.9m on
- Kieran Trippier (£13.5m, Atletico Madrid)
- Chris Wood (£27m, Burnley)
- Bruno Guimaraes (£37.9m, Lyon)
- Matt Targett (loan, Aston Villa)
- Dan Burn (£13.5m, Brighton & Hove Albion)
and as if by some kind of magic, by the end of the season they were 11th.
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | Arsenal | 38 | 22 | 3 | 13 | 61 | 48 | 13 | 69 |
| 6 | Manchester United | 38 | 16 | 10 | 12 | 57 | 57 | 0 | 58 |
| 7 | West Ham United | 38 | 16 | 8 | 14 | 60 | 51 | 9 | 56 |
| 8 | Leicester City | 38 | 14 | 10 | 14 | 62 | 59 | 3 | 52 |
| 9 | Brighton and Hove Albion | 38 | 12 | 15 | 11 | 42 | 44 | -2 | 51 |
| 10 | Wolverhampton Wanderers | 38 | 15 | 6 | 17 | 38 | 43 | -5 | 51 |
| 11 | Newcastle United | 38 | 13 | 10 | 15 | 44 | 62 | -18 | 49 |
In that half-season they had won 12, drawn 2 and lost 5, scoring 25, and conceding 20, giving a goal difference of +5 and a points tally of 38. If they had maintained that approach throughout the entire season they would have been third pushing Arsenal down into sixth.
| Pos | Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Manchester City | 38 | 29 | 6 | 3 | 99 | 26 | 73 | 93 |
| 2 | Liverpool | 38 | 28 | 8 | 2 | 94 | 26 | 68 | 92 |
| 3 | Newcastle (estimate) | 38 | 24 | 4 | 10 | 50 | 40 | 10 | 76 |
| 4 | Chelsea | 38 | 21 | 11 | 6 | 76 | 33 | 43 | 74 |
| 5 | Tottenham Hotspur | 38 | 22 | 5 | 11 | 69 | 40 | 29 | 71 |
| 6 | Arsenal | 38 | 22 | 3 | 13 | 61 | 48 | 13 | 69 |
| 7 | Manchester United | 38 | 16 | 10 | 12 | 57 | 57 | 0 | 58 |
And so finally, after looking at so many clubs, we can see what the fantasy computer of the pundts was thinking. Newcastle will continue next season doing as it had done in the second half of the season and some come third. (Although actually none of the pundits coming third because they kept the top four the same as this last season).
But it didn’t really need a SuperComputer to work that out. I did it on a PC with a calculator.
However, there is a fallacy in this calculation because all it does is have Newcastle improve. Surely to see the full picture we should have a look at what all the clubs were up to in the second half of the season. After all, we have real results for all of them.
| club | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Liverpool | 19 | 15 | 3 | 1 | 38 | 11 | 27 | 48 |
| 2 | Manchester City | 19 | 14 | 4 | 1 | 49 | 14 | 35 | 46 |
| 3 | Newcastle United | 19 | 12 | 2 | 5 | 25 | 20 | 5 | 38 |
| 4 | Tottenham Hots | 19 | 11 | 3 | 5 | 43 | 18 | 25 | 36 |
| 5 | Arsenal | 19 | 11 | 1 | 7 | 29 | 25 | 4 | 34 |
| 6 | Chelsea | 19 | 9 | 6 | 4 | 34 | 20 | 14 | 33 |
But there it is. Although based across the whole season except the first three games Arsenal come in third, based across the last 19 games arsenal are fifth, exactly as they finished up with the advantage of Newcastle’s early demise.
So what is to be done?
Newcastle had two blips in between their powerful run in the second half of the season. Three consecutive defeats in March / April against Chelsea, Everton and Tottenham. All three were away games. Then they lost the last two games of the season, at home to Liverpool and 5-0 away to Manchester City.
Arsenal meanwhile had two blips. Three defeats in March and April out of four games, and two defeats away at the end of the season to Tottenham and Newcastle. For Arsenal to come above Newcastle we need fewer blips than them.
So on this basis Newcastle have firmly planted themselves in the top six squeezing out Manchester United. And if Arsenal wish to jump back into the top four based on the form of the second half of the season, they have to do it by squeezing out at least one of their two blips. In fact, although the journalists away with the fairies tend to focus on just one Arsenal disaster period (the start of the season) there were actually five such.
So, looking at this second half of the season we can see four wanna-be clubs (three wanna-be themselves and one – Leciester – the eternal wanna-be of the journalistic classes) really not pulling up any trees.
| club | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7 | Leicester C | 19 | 8 | 5 | 6 | 29 | 22 | 7 | 29 |
| 8 | Brighton and Hove | 19 | 7 | 7 | 5 | 26 | 23 | 3 | 28 |
| 9 | Brentford | 19 | 8 | 2 | 9 | 25 | 25 | 0 | 26 |
| 10 | Crystal Palace | 19 | 6 | 7 | 6 | 22 | 18 | 4 | 25 |
| 11 | West Ham United | 19 | 7 | 4 | 8 | 28 | 27 | 1 | 25 |
| 12 | Manchester United | 19 | 6 | 6 | 7 | 25 | 31 | -6 | 24 |
| 13 | Wolverhampton Wands | 19 | 7 | 2 | 10 | 21 | 29 | -8 | 23 |
| 14 | Aston Villa | 19 | 6 | 4 | 9 | 27 | 25 | 2 | 22 |
And indeed tucked away with the wanna-bes is Manchester United – an amazing 12th in the league on the basis of the second half of the season.
What we can expect through this whole transfer window is that the top six from the second half of last season, plus Manchester United, will be buying players to get into those four golden places.
So in the next article, we’ll have a look at who they have bought thus far.
An arsenal fan who’s club have taken well over a billion pounds in sponsorship from the UAE having a go at Newcastle United? Read on: “Activists and academics who criticize the regime are detained and imprisoned, and their families are often harassed by the state security apparatus. There are reports of forced disappearances in the UAE, many foreign nationals and Emirati citizens have been abducted by the UAE government and illegally detained and tortured in undisclosed locations. In numerous instances, the UAE government has tortured people in custody (especially expats and political dissidents),and has denied their citizens the right to a speedy trial and access to counsel during official investigations.
The UAE detains those who criticize authorities, including hundreds of activists and academics, and Emirati laws discriminate against women, migrants and LGBT individuals.
Flogging and stoning are legal forms of judicial punishment in the UAE due to Sharia courts.
Arsenal fans don’t comment on the issue of where the money is coming from and what it says about Arsenal’s attitude toward human rights. If you’re going to throw stones don’t stand in a greenhouse.
Firstly, Newcastle didn’t “lose their last two games” to Liverpool and City – we beat Arsenal 2-0 then Burnley 2-1 (playing Arsenal off the pitch). Secondly, it wasn’t “as if by magic” and £90m that we moved up the table – Trippier was injured for most, Wood barely scored. Guimaraes was eased in as a last minute sub during a winning run. And £90m barely scratches the surface of catching up on spending by Arsenal and others following the Ashley years.
Now I do admit Alex with over 11,000 articles published on this site and over a quarter of a million comments it would be hard to go back and read them all, but somehow you seem to have the idea that you know exactly what the stance is of Untold on human rights.
To say “Arsenal fans don’t comment on the issue of where the money is coming from and what it says about Arsenal’s attitude toward human rights” is just ludicrous.
One perhaps could take your last comment and change it to, ” If you’re going to throw stones please do try to do a minimal bit of research first otherwise you can end up looking like a total prat.”