Newcastle United late sickeners now fact checked

I was interested to read this about Newcastle United on The Mag this Thursday morning.

It got me thinking.

It was the usual feature on The Mag, where somebody writes about three positives and three negatives from the most recent game.

So it was about the Newcastle 2 Spurs 2 match the other night.

As you all know, no goals somehow for Newcastle United in the first seventy minutes and then we took the lead twice only for Spurs to equalise each time.

Romero with both of their goals, the second of them coming in added time.

Anyway, on the positives and negatives feature this morning, one of the negatives got me thinking.

‘The late late shows

It was fifth time that we have conceded in added time this season. Please United, make it stop.

Can they focus on this in training more? It’s poor game management.

Too many times this season we’ve had some late sickeners.

We’re better than this, right.’

What got me thinking was, I struggled to remember the last match when a goal in added time had cost us.

The author of the article this morning said this was the fifth time we had suffered from ‘late sickeners’ in added time.

I thought I would do a bit of fact checking, see how many points had been lost before this Spurs game.

The most recent time United conceded in added time was 9 November, away at Brentford. A goal in the 96th minute, but Newcastle were already losing 2-1 and down to ten men, so no points lost due to the late goal and Newcastle obviously had to try and get an equaliser so had no choice but for the 10 men to try and do that.

Before that, it was at West Ham on 2 November. Very similar to Brentford but this time we still had ten men, already 2-1 down and trying to get an equaliser, instead in the 97th minute the Hammers scored on the break. No points lost to that goal though as NUFC were already picking up no points.

Before that, you have to go all the way back to 28 September, the home game against Arsenal. Now that was a sickener! However, deep in added time, the crowd were urging Newcastle to go for the winner and our players trying to do that, only for a succession of things to go wrong and instead Arsenal get the winner in the 96th minute. For me, that match was all about the cowardly cynical challenge by Saliba when Tino Livramento was in midair. That challenge meant the defender stretchered off and a lengthy absence, United had been defending well and were 1-0 up at the time, but the Tino injury really knocked us. Anyway, you know what happened, Arsenal equalised and then when chasing the winner, Pope’s long clearance was picked up by Arsenal in the last minute, they ended up winning a corner and scoring from it.

The only other occasion of conceding in added time this season was the first home game of the season on 25 August against Liverpool. Brilliantly coming back from 2-0 down with ten men and with the crowd urging the players to go for the winner, with NUFC on top, Liverpool fashioned a chance on the break and scored a cruel winner in the 100th minute!

It was absolutely horrible but as I say, all of us lot were urging the players to go for the win. I don’t think it was anything disastrous from Eddie Howe or indeed our players. In that game Newcastle didn’t enough of the numerous chances we created, even with ten men, whilst Liverpool fluked it when taking pretty much all of their very few opportunities. Even Jamie Carragher admitted it was unbelievable how lucky the scousers had been.

This idea that conceding goals in added time this season has been such a disaster for Newcastle United, simply doesn’t ring true when fact checked.

Of course it was a sickener when Romero fluked his second equaliser as the likes of Thiaw and Ramsdale should have done better.

However, in all of the 20 games this season before the Spurs one, it was only the Liverpool and Arsenal matches where a goal in added time changed a match in a negative way for Newcastle United. Eddie Howe’s team losing two points in total, that draws against that pair would have brought.

I actually had a look across all 21 matches this season for Newcastle United.

When it comes to goals scored/conceded from 80 minutes onwards, it turns out Newcastle have scored eight goals in the later stages of matches and the opposition teams have scored seven in total. United actually slightly ahead when it comes to late goals scored in the 80th minute and beyond.

You have to keep things in perspective.

We were all gutted when that goal went in on Tuesday night that cost us two points, none more so than Eddie Howe and his players.

This is not an epidemic though.

In the 20 games before Tottenham, I can’t really fault the team for what happened late in the Liverpool match, so in reality I think it is only that Arsenal game where the team threw a point away this season (so far!!!).