Vibe check – Newcastle v Arsenal

In the absence (at the time of writing) of any real team updates or press conferences from either of the two managers involved in our game tomorrow, I thought I’d do my bit of weekly snooping to see what the vibe is amongst the Geordies, ahead of our game against them tomorrow lunchtime. Sometimes it’s a good gauge to see how they are doing and whether their fans are upbeat or downcast. Of course you always get weird fans who will say disparaging things about whoever the opposition is, there’s always a few fans who will say “I hate them – they’re the worst of any team”, or those that trot out tired cliche’s like “they don’t like it up ’em”, but when you read enough comments you tend to have enough data points to come to a sensible middle ground on where they are at.

Based on some of my initial reading, there’s a fair few predicting an Arsenal win here, which is interesting. Of course there are a few that back their team no matter what, but based on the 15 – 20 predictions that I looked at, it feels like there’s about 60 – 70% who think us, 10 – 20% that think draw, then 10 – 20% that think they will win. Quite something because in recent years it’s usually swung in the other direction. As you’d expect on a fans forum, there’s lots of “let’s kick the crap out of them” type stuff and I actually take some heart in that, weirdly. That’s because if they’re not talking about ways to beat us from their own game, it might mean that they aren’t so confident with what is happening on the pitch. I might be wrong, this is only one main forum I spent a bit of time on, but that doesn’t strike me as a set of fans who are looking at where ‘battles’ are going to be won on the pitch.

Which surprises me, because they beat us three seasons ago up there, then last season in albeit controversial circumstances. You’d think that they’d be looking at this game and having a proper debate about what our weaknesses are and where they can hurt us. Which looks like the middle of the pitch if anything. Bruno, Joelinton, Tonali, all technically decent players, but also guys who have a physicality that they will bring to the table.

There was one or two that have talked about the fact it’s an early kick off, something which I hope plays in to our hands, but by how much I’m not so sure. I’ll do more on a tactical preview tomorrow, but as far as ‘vibes check’ goes, I’m not seeing a bullish set of fans.

And when you look at their results, some injuries and the way they are playing, you can kind of see why. They’re currently 12th in the League, they’ve won three, lost three, drawn three, scored nine goals (16th in the league) but conceded just 10, which is joint fourth with us. Defensively they’ve been good on that metric, but when you look at their xG allowed, they are 11th, so perhaps there’s an element of fortune to the fact they’ve conceded so few. Although like us, their numbers are skewed slightly because of the sending off they got against Southampton, so it’s difficult to read too much in to it at the moment. Their last home game was a defeat to Brighton in which they had 21 shots on goal and looked to have dominated them for most of the game, with Brighton doing a bit of a rope-a-dope on them. Indeed, Newcastle had double the amount of xG than the Seagulls and seemed to have pinned Brighton back for most of the game, based on the numbers I’ve seen. The game before that they got a 1-1 draw against City and before that they beat the Scum 2-1, so this will by no means be an easy afternoon for us – not that I think any of us thought it would be. You may be playing the team 12th in the table right now, but I’d be surprised if they’re that low come the end of the season.

What will be a big one will be if Isak isn’t fit though. Eddie Howe said he wasn’t sure if he was ok as he was taken off in midweek and apparently was hobbling, but I suspect he’ll be ok. He’s accounted for 3.5 of Newcastle’s xG this season, with Gordon accounting for 3.3, so if one of those isn’t playing, then it does make their attacking potency all the more difficult. Those two players basically make up half of their attacking xG threat so if you keep those guys quiet, you keep Newcastle quiet.

For us all of the questions will be around who is fit and available, but I’ll do more on that tomorrow when I know a bit more. Suffice to say, however, that this feels very much like a ‘must-win’ game given how we are already a bit of a distance away from Liverpool and City. A defeat tomorrow and it might be another nail closer to the coffin being closed on any title aspirations. Even at this early stage in the season, eight points off City feels like an impossible mountain to climb.

I think I’ll leave it there today. A little later on the release of the blog this morning, as I have stuff to do this Friday, but will be back tomorrow with the usual pre match thoughts. Catch you all then.