It’s hard to name a better goalkeeper in England right now than Nick Pope.
As much as my podcast co-host, Liam will protest that Everton’s Jordan Pickford is still England’s number one, or people will say that Emi Martinez of Aston Villa is a World Cup winner and is therefore the best in the game, the stats all support the conclusion that the best goalkeeper right now is Nick Pope.
Last night saw the Newcastle stopper achieve his TENTH consecutive clean sheet. That’s truly mind-blowing.
When I were a lad, back in the Kevin Keegan days, Newcastle were a force to be reckoned with but our philosophy was to score one more than the opposition. Leaking goals wasn’t an issue as long as we were scoring. That’s why we were the entertainers, and although time moved on and players, managers and owners changed, we never quite got our heads around the whole defensive aspect of the game.
In comes Eddie Howe, who had a similar “score one more” philosophy at Bournemouth. Many pundits questioned the appointment saying that he’s not a defensive-minded coach and that will make it hard for Newcastle to achieve anything.
Well, whether he’s defensive-minded or not, he’s managed to coach our club to have the best defensive record in Europe right now according to Over25tips.com.
A lot of that is down to the back four, for sure. They’ve become rock solid and only seem to get stronger as games go by (slight blip last night aside), but behind them stands a colossus between the sticks who, despite not having much to do for large parts of the game, is always alert and ready to deal with whatever comes his way.
Pope has still only conceded eleven goals this season, he now has more clean sheets than he has let goals in – twelve. Ten consecutive clean sheets in all competitions as I mentioned before.
I’m not a religious man, but I believe in this Pope.