By Tony Attwood
If Newcastle have a problem (and they surely do) included within that problem is the playing of away games. For in the table, they lie 16th for away matches, with only Fulham, Leeds, Burnley and Wolverhampton doing worse. Just four away wins for Newcastle this season….
Away table
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
| 1 | Arsenal | 17 | 9 | 5 | 3 | 27 | 15 | +12 | 32 |
| 16 | Newcastle Utd | 16 | 4 | 4 | 8 | 16 | 21 | -5 | 16 |
| 17 | Fulham | 17 | 4 | 4 | 9 | 16 | 27 | -11 | 16 |
| 18 | Leeds Utd | 17 | 2 | 8 | 7 | 19 | 31 | -12 | 14 |
| 19 | Burnley | 17 | 2 | 3 | 12 | 19 | 42 | -23 | 9 |
| 20 | Wolverhampton | 17 | 0 | 5 | 12 | 7 | 30 | -23 | 5 |
Meanwhile, if we draw up a table comparing Arsenal at home and Newcastle away, we find…
| Pos | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | PPG | |
| 2 | Arsenal home | 16 | 12 | 2 | 2 | 36 | 11 | +25 | 38 | 2.38 |
| 16 | Newcastle Utd away | 16 | 4 | 4 | 8 | 16 | 21 | -5 | 16 | 1.00 |
... Arsenal are doing more than twice as well as Newcastle.
And indeed this is not just something that happened earlier in the season, from which Newcastle are now recovering, for the last six games table shows not only Wolverhampton in 16th but also an interesting collection of clubs having a particularly hard time of it at the moment. Indeed, with this record (as shwon below) for Tottenham Hots, and them sitting 18th overall, their position of 19th in the last six games table does not offer much hope.
Still, we think of chickens being hatched as the old saying goes, so we’ll just watch with curiosity the club with the new stadium, and all the boasts about its future wonderful future.
Last six games (home and away)
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | Arsenal | 6 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 11 | 6 | +5 | 12 |
| 16 | Wolverhampton Wa | 6 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 6 | 11 | -5 | 7 |
| 17 | Newcastle Un | 6 | 2 | 0 | 4 | 8 | 10 | -2 | 6 |
| 18 | Chelsea | 6 | 1 | 0 | 5 | 4 | 12 | -8 | 3 |
| 19 | Tottenham Ho | 6 | 0 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 12 | -7 | 2 |
| 20 | Burnley | 6 | 0 | 1 | 5 | 2 | 12 | -10 | 1 |
But despite the regularity of modest scoring games between the two, perhaps we might spare a moment to think back to the season 2012/13, in which on 29 December, with a 5.30 kick off, Arsenal walloped Newcastle 7-3.
But returning our focus to Newcastle, it certainly does look as if, in terms of their general overall play and their away games specifically, they are finding life hard. A 3-1 victory, based on this season’s performances, should be the least we can expect, although football of course, isn’t quite as predictable as that.
The clubs have played each other 198 times before, with Newcastle winning 72 to Arsenal’s 87, and with 39 draws, which means 44% of the matches through history have been won by Arsenal.
In the last ten games between the two clubs, Arsenal have won six, including three of the last four. There has just been one draw, leaving Newcastle winning three. The goals scored have been 13 to Arsenal and six to Newcastle, which historically suggests Arsenal might win this game 1-0.
Newcastle’s victory in the League Cup final last season was their first trophy since they gained promotion to the Premier League by winning the Championship in 2017. Prior to that, they won the Intertoto in 2007, and the Fairs Cup in 1969, but their last domestic trophy of any significance was the FA Cup Final in 1955. In fact at that time, now over 70 years ago, they won the FA Cup in three seasons out of five.
This is now their ninth consecutive season in the top division, and in the last three seasons, they have come in the top half of the league (which they failed to do up to that point in this run in the Premier League). Those finishes were 4th, 7th, and 5th. So their current position of 14th does look like a slip back to olden times.
And for all the support that they have around the country, and the fame in their name, they have only been Champions four times: 1905, 1907, 1909, and 1927. They have been runners-up twice.
Perhaps the main disappointing element in this fixture, if we look back over recent years, is the fact that only once in the past decade have Arsenal really taken advantage of their historic dominance and walloped Newcastle United – that time being the 4-1 home win on 24 February 2024. The goals came from Havertz, Saka and Kiwior plus an own goal.
But the one game that will always stick in the mind was the 7-3 victory just after Christmas 2012, when Theo Walcott got a hat-trick and Giroud got a couple. It was overall a very nice Christmas for me, and that victory really did round it off.
