Some Newcastle United fans have been hailing Martin Dubravka on social media for keeping the scoreline respectable as we lost 2-0 at Aston Villa on Monday night.
First-half goals from Conor Hourihane and Jack Grealish gave the Villans the three points and moved the Birmingham-based outfit to 15th in the Premier League standings, just a point below us after 13 games.
Dean Smith’s side could have put further distance between the two teams on Monday night had it not been for Dubravka pulling off a good stop to deny Douglas Luiz in the opening 45, and a superb double save to prevent Wesley and Ezri Konsa after the break.
Dubravka was forced to make a total of six saves at Villa Park, along with three collections, one parried save and he parried danger once, per WhoScored data.
The £6.3million-rated shot-stopper also completed 72% of his total 29 passes, which was a marginally lower completion rate than three of our starting outfield players and better than DeAndre Yedlin and Federico Fernandez at 68% each.
His total of 21 accurate passes was also more than all bar Jonjo Shelvey (40), Ciaran Clark (25) and Isaac Hayden (23), and the same as Fernandez, of those who featured for us on Monday night.
Could Dubravka have done more to prevent Villa's goals?
Yes
No
Here are some of the messages shared as supporter’s hailed Dubravka on social media…
Dubravka man…. Class act. Shame the same can’t be said about the rest of them tonight #NUFC
— Kris Pedersen (@NearlyAllThe7s) November 25, 2019
Dubravka is the most underrated keeper in the league
— Spen (@SpennyboyNUFC) November 25, 2019
That was hopeless,
Only player trying was Dubravka.#NUFC— Bucko (@Cheshire_Mag) November 25, 2019
We should’ve lost by far more than this today, but thankfully we have Dubravka in goal. Unacceptable performance whichever way you view it. #nufc
— NUFC 360 (@NUFC360) November 25, 2019
Dubravka keeping this score line respectable… #NUFC
— Will Hare (@willhare) November 25, 2019
Saint-Maximin and Dubravka only two players that can hold their heads up high? #NUFC
— ToonArmy (@toonarmy_com) November 25, 2019
If it wasn’t for Dubravka we’d be getting absolutely battered by now ???? #AVLNEW #NUFC
— Harry Wilding (@HarryWilding_) November 25, 2019
Is #dubravka the new #Ederson? What’s going on with @NUFC
— BradleyIainHall (@BradleyIainHal1) November 25, 2019