Things are complicated for Newcastle United. The sense of ethical unease many football fans are discovering at the World Cup is one Toon fans are now unfortunately familiar with. On the one hand, the Saudi takeover represented a new hope for an on-the-field product that broke free of the restraints of the Mike Ashley era. On the other, the soul of the club changed in an extremely ugly manner. Newcastle United is no longer just a football club. It is an extremely sophisticated public relations operation of global political significance. Their successes are inextricably linked with one of the world’s most unsavoury regimes.
Of course, to some fans, this doesn’t matter one bit. But to others – most I think – it gnaws away at the conscience. On the pitch, Newcastle have been an unbridled joy this season. That success merits writing about, exploring, and enjoying. But doing so will always come with a caveat: that none of this should really have been possible if it wasn’t for the moral vacuum that exists at the top of football. That said, for this season at least, Newcastle United are still an underdog story, and a story worth telling. So the question is…
Can Newcastle qualify for the Champions League?
It’s a question few would have dared ask at the start of the season. Despite Newcastle United’s newfound wealth, the signings they had made had the longer-term in mind. Aside from Financial Fair Play, the new ownerships had narratives to consider. A slow, sustainable rebuild was the most feel-good story they could sell. And so the glamorous additions – Sven Botman, Alexander Isak, and Bruno Guimarães – were all younger players, brought in from abroad in the hope that Newcastle’s gradual ascent would give them adequate time to adjust to the Premier League. But the bulk of the signings were squarely aimed at consolidating Newcastle as a consistent mid-table team – Nick Pope, Dan Burn, Matt Targett, Kieran Trippier, and Chris Wood – all experienced and steadying presences.
And yet here we are. 15 games into the 2022-23 Premier League season, Newcastle United are third.
Newcastle are third.
The rebuild has been kicked into overdrive. Things were not supposed to progress this fast. This time last year, Newcastle were 19th having won just once all season. That they now occupy such a different stratosphere of the Premier League is, yes, partly due to investment. But it also has a lot to do with coaching. Eddie Howe has transformed many of the players who were involved in that dismal start to last season. Most notably this year, Miguel Almirón has finally found a lethal end product to add to his seemingly infinite joyous energy. Joelinton is a gnarly battering ram of a midfielder, not the hapless, clumsy, duck-out-of-water centre-forward he once was. Sean Longstaff has rediscovered the form that once had Manchester United come knocking. Should they revive their interest, Longstaff might justifiably now view Old Trafford as a backwards step.
But in truth, Champions League football next season still feels like a bit of a fairy-tale. On the pitch, this is perhaps the most fun episode of Newcastle’s transformation. The unfathomable wealth of the owners makes trophies anticlimactically inevitable. But right now, unburdened by expectation, a top four finish would feel like a fever dream. Yet, once again, Newcastle are third.
And so, the time has come to seriously consider the possibility. So, with 30 years of Premier League data to examine, can they do it? Can Newcastle United qualify for the Champions League?
What the data says
Newcastle have 30 points from 15 games. They have scored 29 goals and conceded just 11 – the league’s joint best defensive record. And they are third in the table.
Examining every team in Premier League history to be third after 15 games, and every team to equal Newcastle’s points total at the same mark, can give us some insight into how Newcastle might expect to finish. FiveThirtyEight’s projection gives Newcastle just a 42% chance to maintain their Champions League position. But if we look at the history of the Premier League, the outlook is more hopeful.
The headline is that 2022-23 Newcastle United are actually better than most third-place teams at this stage of the season throughout history. On average, the team in third after 15 games from the inception of the Premier League in 1992 to last season had 29.73 points – which when rounded up matches Newcastle’s total. However, the average team in Newcastle’s position scored 26.8 goals and conceded 13.7 for a goal difference of 13.1. Newcastle’s goal difference is five better – a considerable margin.
In fact, Newcastle’s goal difference is the fifth best of the 31 teams in history to be third after 15 games. That implies they’re here on merit.
But here’s the crucial bit. The average finishing position of teams that were third after 15 games was 3.8. In other words, yes, teams do tend to drop off a bit, but they don’t tend to fall out of the Champions League places. This number is also skewed down by Norwich City’s disastrous second half to the 1993-94 season in which they plummeted from third to 12th. So not only are Newcastle better than the average third place team, but that average third place team would still finish in the top four.
Of course, this is an inexact science. Each Premier League season is different – some years the league is bunched up (as was the case for Norwich’s 93-94 drop-off), other years clear tiers emerge. So what happens if, rather than looking simply at league position after 15 games, we instead look at Newcastle’s 30 point total from those games?
This has only been exactly matched eleven times in Premier League history. Only twice – Chelsea in 2013-14 and Everton in 2004-2005 – has a team with 30 points after 15 games also occupied third place in the table. Both of those teams finished in the top four, with Chelsea managing to maintain third and Everton finishing fourth despite having a goal difference of just 5 at the 15-game mark. Again, Newcastle appear to be better than both of those teams.
Of the eleven teams to match Newcastle’s points total at the same stage of the season, six were even higher than third at the time, suggesting Newcastle are good value for their league position. They also have the best goal difference of any team in Premier League history to have 30 points from the opening 15 games. This suggests that they would be justified in feeling slightly unlucky not have more points on the board, which could be explained by their penchant for drawing games early in the season despite playing well.
The expectation held by FiveThirtyEight and much of the football world that Newcastle will probably slip out of the top four likely has a lot to do with the assumption that Liverpool will pick up form and surge up the table. This is, of course, possible and maybe even likely. But history indicates that Newcastle have a very good chance of maintaining their position and playing Champions League football next season.
Could they “do a Leicester”?
When Leicester won the league in 2015-16, they were already two points clear at the top at this stage. Newcastle are seven points behind leaders Arsenal, who have also played a game fewer. Even at this still relatively early stage of the season, that’s a pretty big gap to make up. And the data suggests whilst the top four is a distinct possibility, the league title might be a step too far for the Magpies.
The only team to ever overturn a deficit of seven points or more after 15 games and go on to win the Premier League was Manchester United, in the league’s inaugural season. No team has managed it since. That suggests that the league title this year really is a straight fight between Arsenal and Manchester City. In the late 90s and early 2000s, greater parity meant that points totals tended to be lower, but since the 2002-03 season only two teams with 30 points or fewer after 15 games have gone onto win the league title – Manchester City in both 2013-14 and 2020-21. City’s 2013-14 title run is the closest to what Newcastle will have to replicate if they are to make a shock bid for the trophy – they trailed Arsenal by six points that year. But that Manchester City team was a goalscoring powerhouse, scoring nearly three goals a game in those opening 15 games and accruing a goal difference eight better than Newcastle’s.
Though the title may be beyond them, it’s testament to the enormous progress Newcastle have made under Howe that their candidacy for the league title merits consideration. This was, after all, not really the plan. Howe has accelerated Newcastle’s evolution by developing players who were already at the club and imprinting a distinctive tactical identity, something they sorely lacked under Bruce. And make no mistake, a Champions League finish is very much on the cards.
Newcastle are third. And they might just stay there.
