Tom Hancock looks at key tactical points and players who can be influential in Matchweek 9.
Team analysis: Newcastle United
Newcastle's 1-0 loss to Brighton & Hove Albion last Saturday ended a 12-match unbeaten home run stretching back to January.
Eddie Howe’s side are now winless in four Premier League outings, their longest such streak since the turn of the year, ahead of Sunday’s tough-looking trip to Chelsea.
Newcastle were among the top scorers in the Premier League last season - only the top three sides, Manchester City, Arsenal and Liverpool, notched more goals than Newcastle’s 85 - but they’ve been far from potent so far this season, netting only eight times in eight matches.
What’s more, the Magpies have failed to score in successive league encounters for the first time in 18 months.
After a tough summer transfer window in which Newcastle didn’t make a marquee signing, per se, Howe admitted that the club’s ultimate aim of winning the Premier League title would take “a lot longer” to realise than had initially been hoped.
Nonetheless, it has been a disappointing start to the campaign, with last season’s seventh-placed finishers taking only 12 points from the first 24 available.
We take a look at what’s going wrong for Newcastle right now - and how they might fix it.
Where have all the goals gone?
Newcastle’s haul of 85 Premier League goals last season represented their best top-flight tally since 1960/61, when they scored 86 (in a 42-match campaign) but conceded 109 and were relegated.
Averaging 2.2 goals per match in 2023/24, they netted three times or more on no fewer than 14 occasions - one of the standout results being an 8-0 demolition of Sheffield United in September, their biggest-ever away league win.
Alexander Isak was one of eight different scorers that day - a Premier League record - and he finished the season with 21 goals in 30 matches. However, the Swede, who bagged 31 goals in his first 52 league outings for Newcastle, has endured a barren start to the current campaign.
Registering only one goal in 495 minutes of top-flight action in 2024/25, Newcastle's main attacking threat is not yet firing on all cylinders.
But Isak is not alone in shouldering the goalscoring responsibility for his team. Even without their club-record signing’s 21 goals, Howe’s men would still have out-scored every other side outside the Premier League top seven in 2023/24.
Almost a quarter of the way through this campaign, only four clubs in the division have scored fewer than Newcastle's eight goals - Manchester United (seven), Ipswich Town (six), Southampton (six) and Crystal Palace (five).
Missed chances
In 2023/24, Newcastle's big-chance conversion rate was the fourth-highest in the Premier League, at 47.76 per cent, after scoring 64 goals from their 134 big chances. For big chances they created themselves, they ranked second in the division, with 97.
So far this season, they’ve converted only five out of 17 big chances, meaning their conversion rate has dropped quite significantly to 29.41 per cent.
A look at some of the opportunities Newcastle failed to score from against Brighton gives us an idea of how wasteful they’ve been in front of goal recently. The Magpies missed all of their four big chances, two of which were particularly golden.
In the first half, with the score at 0-0, Bruno Guimaraes fed Isak with a dream of a through ball, only for the striker to shoot more or less straight at onrushing goalkeeper Bart Verbruggen.
Then, in the second half, with Brighton now 1-0 up, Anthony Gordon - who had a penalty saved in Newcastle’s previous outing, a 0-0 draw at his former club Everton - was on the end of Isak's ideally weighted cross but couldn't direct his header anywhere near the target.
Newcastle posted 2.02 non-penalty Expected Goals (NPxG) against Brighton - the first time they’ve passed the 2.0 xG mark in a single match in 2024/25. Their NPxG output for the season so far, 10.9, is not alarmingly low.
Howe certainly doesn’t appear alarmed, telling Match of the Day after Saturday’s defeat: "I didn’t feel we needed to totally rip up what we were doing. A goal looked like it was coming. We’re going through a phase where we’re not scoring, but the positive is we’re creating chances."
Newcastle's inability to find the net is also illustrated by a map of their shots this season. Less than one third of their shots in 2024/25 - 33 from 102 - have been on target.
Cause for optimism
What’s the trick to Newcastle kickstarting their campaign, then? Well, arguably their most notable drop-off from last season to 2024/25 has come in terms of pressing effectiveness.
As Howe noted, his team are creating chances. They are not, however, creating them in quite the same way as they were doing in 2023/24, when they regularly won possession high up the pitch and scored from such situations.
Newcastle placed second in the Premier League for goals from high turnovers in 2023/24, with their total of 12 surpassed only by the 13 of champions Manchester City. The Magpies also averaged 1.39 shots from high turnovers per match.
Throw it forward to 2024/25, though, and, while Newcastle are pressing with similar intensity - as evidenced by their PPDA (passes per defensive action) of 10.3, a fractional increase on 2023/24 - they are not turning the ball over in threatening positions as much as they’d become accustomed to under Howe.
Last season, they averaged 8.1 high turnovers per match; so far this campaign they’re averaging only 5.5 – with their average number of shots from high turnovers decreasing from 1.39 to 0.87.
Despite this, Newcastle are still taking a sizeable proportion of their shots from inside the box - something which has paid dividends for most Premier League teams who profile similarly.
However, their poacher supreme Callum Wilson has been ruled out for a further three matches, with Howe saying at Friday's press conference: "He's got no injury as such, he just isn't ready to come back yet."
Wilson, who last featured on the final day of last season, was referred to as "as a big miss" after the Brighton loss.
Highest % shots inside penalty area 24/25
| Team | Total shots | Shots inside area | % shots inside area | Goals |
| FUL | 115 | 91 | 79.1 | 11 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NEW | 102 | 78 | 76.5 | 8 |
| ARS | 120 | 91 | 75.8 | 15 |
| LIV | 116 | 86 | 74.1 | 15 |
| TOT | 145 | 107 | 73.8 | 18 |
Newcastle are still functioning like Howe’s side of last season, but only up to a point. The intensity is still there; they just haven’t been blowing opponents away like they did on numerous occasions in 2023/24.
But the green shoots of recovery are there, as are some favourable-looking fixtures - between now and Christmas, Newcastle will face four of the seven teams who have conceded the most goals this season in West Ham United, Brentford, Leicester City and Ipswich Town.
If they can get Wilson fit, and convert more of the many chances they are creating, they could be back on track by the midway point of the campaign.