Three Games In: A Closer Look at Newcastle’s Start to the Season

Five points from three games. Six goals scored. Still unbeaten. If the football gods had offered us this when Bruno was heading out the door, we would probably all have snapped their hand off.

There are plenty of reasons for Newcastle supporters to be reasonably happy with the opening weeks of the Premier League season.

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Nobody wants to be the one standing in the corner refusing to enjoy it, and this is not really an attempt to be a grinch about a perfectly good start to the season.

There is, however, one number that stands out: 61.

That is how many shots Newcastle have faced across their first three league matches. Newcastle themselves have managed 32. Opposition sides have also put 18 efforts on target compared with Newcastle's eight.

Yet Newcastle have somehow scored six goals from those eight shots on target.

Nobody is going to complain about clinical finishing. Anthony Elanga, Yoane Wissa, Harvey Barnes, Joe Willock and Jacob Ramsey have all produced key moments. But scoring six times from eight shots on target is probably not something Newcastle can expect to continue indefinitely.

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That makes the early numbers worth watching, and the pattern has not gone unnoticed. Luke Edwards highlighted the numbers in The Telegraph after the Bournemouth game, while Craig Hope also picked them up on his YouTube channel.

Importantly, this is not really a story about Newcastle constantly giving away enormous chances. Across the three matches, the average quality of Newcastle's attempts has actually been fairly similar to those of their opponents.

The bigger issue is volume.

Newcastle are allowing opponents to finish far more attacks with a shot than they are managing themselves.

The shot count against Liverpool can partly be explained by the quality of the opposition and the nature of the game. Newcastle were always likely to spend periods defending and looking for opportunities to attack quickly.

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Tottenham was more encouraging. Newcastle's pressing caused problems, the plan to move the ball quickly into wide areas worked at times, and there were signs of the aggressive football Matthias Jaissle is trying to introduce.

Even then, Spurs had 17 shots to Newcastle's 11 and six on target to Newcastle's two.

Then came Bournemouth.

On paper, that is probably the most concerning of the three matches. Newcastle had nearly 58 per cent possession at St James' Park, but were still outshot 17 to eight and managed only two efforts on target.

But there is another way of looking at it.

Bournemouth just seem to have Newcastle's number.

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For whatever reason, these games are nearly always awkward. They are one of those opponents who seem capable of making Newcastle look uncomfortable regardless of form, venue or expectation. Every club has one. Bournemouth might just be Newcastle's kryptonite.

From that perspective, coming back from two goals down to take a point does not feel like a terrible result at all.

Perhaps that is the wider lesson from these first three games.

The numbers are interesting, but three matches are nowhere near enough to tell us exactly what they mean.

Maybe Newcastle need to become more compact when their initial press is beaten. Maybe they need more reliable ways of creating chances when opponents deny them space to counterattack. Maybe some of this simply improves as a new manager and a changed squad spend more time together.

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The truth is that we do not really know yet.

What we do know is that Newcastle are currently relying on an extraordinary level of finishing efficiency while allowing opponents considerably more shots than they are producing themselves.

That does not make the five points undeserved. Football is won by putting the ball in the net, not by winning a spreadsheet.

It simply gives Jaissle something to keep an eye on.

Five points while a new team is still learning how he wants to play is a perfectly respectable start. A draw against Newcastle's apparent kryptonite does not change that.

But if the shot imbalance is still there after another five or six games, while the goals from almost every effort on target inevitably become harder to sustain, then we might have something more significant to talk about.

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