A pair of BBC pundits have said that Newcastle are playing better football now than they were under Rafael Benitez.
With the former Sunderland manager Steve Bruce coming to St James’ Park in a difficult set of circumstances, on the face of things, he has done a pretty good job so far.
Of course, the Magpies 1-0 loss to Burnley was a good representation of their lack of attacking prowess, yet they are still in 11th place after 17 games and have a healthy seven-point buffer on Southampton in 18th.
Who plays the better football?
Bruce
Benitez
Speaking prior to their match at Turf Moor, pundit Kevin Kilbane said on Radio 5 Live that this United team are playing better football than they were during the last season.
Kilbane said (via the Chronicle): “There’s a lot of pressure on them. You can imagine playing at home with that little bit of negative feeling around the club, what’s happening off the field does affect what happens on it.
“I actually think they’re playing better football than last year. I saw the last couple of games where they didn’t actually play too well across the course of the games, but across the season they’ve played better football than last year.”
Micah Richards continued to discuss the new manager and even went onto to explain his confusion over why the fans aren’t taking to Bruce.
He said: “Why do the fans not want to take to Bruce? I know he’s been at Sunderland, but you have to move with the times don’t you?”
“At the end of the day, they’re playing good football like you said, they’re two points off fifth. They’ve got a couple of injuries
“When we were on this show about a month ago, everyone was saying Newcastle are going down, and they’ll be down by Christmas.
“I just feel Bruce deserves a little bit more respect now, I think he should have earned the fans respect.”
While the arguments about Newcastle playing good football is certainly up for debate, the confusion about fans not taking to Bruce seems fair enough.
Looking at some isolated statistics, you can definitely argue that they are not playing ‘good football’. Out of all of the teams in the Premier League, they have by far the worst average possession stats, with just 39 per cent. The next closest team is Burnley who, on average, have 43 per cent possession (WhoScored).
For context, if you put every team in order for their possession stats, there is no greater jump between two sides in possession than Newcastle and Burnley (four per cent). Additionally, they have the second-lowest pass percentage rate with only 73 per cent of passes being successful.
Looking at it even more in black and white, they are third lowest scorers in the division this campaign, with only Crystal Palace and Watford scoring less.
Despite this, can you blame Bruce for approaching this season the way he has? He has managed to find a way to get to mid-table despite a lot of adversity and not a particularly fantastic squad. He is not to blame for the way in which he was appointed and it would be really unfair to say he’s doing anything other than a really good job thus far.