Lump of Coal to Newcastle Again

Pretty sure I used that header before but it's another Christmas season in which Newcastle got a lump of coal in its proverbial stocking.

I believe my tally for the 14 Days of Football was all or part of 20 out of 40 matches.  I remember some of them.  Some might say get a life.  In my defense, since I was limited to a daily walk around the block with a walker, it's not like there were a lot of other things I could have been doing. 

Here's the BFS rating system:

From Paul McCartney - "Simply having a wonderful Christmastime"

Santa obviously read your list very carefully

Nice enough but you didn't get the Red Ryder carbine-action, two hundred shot Range Model air rifle with a compass in the stock and this thing which tells time you really wanted

Ties are a nice gift but how many do you really need?

 

You may have been naughtier than you realized

Newcastle - 

The draw with Watford kept this from being a lump of coal.  Two points and one goal in the four matches is pretty pathetic.  The points came from draws to Fulham and Watford.  The losses were 0-4 to Liverpool and 0-2 to Man United.  Only Huddersfield, which got no points, fared worse over the holiday season.  To be fair, there were times when the Magpies weren't awful; the defense continues to be reasonably stout and well-organized.  But the lack of creativity and scoring touch means that if they don't convert their one or two chances, the best they can get is a 0-0 draw.  

January 1 opens the most critical transfer window in recent history for Newcastle.  First, they must make additions to ensure they are not relegated.  More importantly though, anything less than meaningful support from owner Mike Ashley as Benitez attempts to improve the squad surely means that Rafa is gone at the end of the season regardless of Newcastle's finish.   

Man United  - You Can Only Beat Who You Play 

Despite the temptation to adjust the rating downwards based on the quality of the opposition (Cardiff, Huddersfield, Bournemouth and Newcastle), we cannot in good conscience award Man United anything less than five Santas.  About all you could have asked for was bigger margins of victory but even at that, they went from 0 to +11 in goal differential in these four matches.  They went from 11 points out of 4th to just six behind Chelsea.  A season reborn.  

No other 5-Santa performances but we do have some pretty happy campers.  

Leicester - 

The degree of difficulty makes us want to award that fifth Santa but we can't do that based on the 0-1 loss to Cardiff.  But how about consecutive wins over Chelsea and Man City?  Add in the 1-0 win over Everton and the Foxes added nine points to move to the top of the mid-table.  One could have easily seen them being happy with six points.

Crystal Palace - 

The Eagles surprised Man City, drew with Cardiff and beat Wolves for a seven point haul.  And they gave Chelsea a run before falling 0-1.  Still surprised to see them just six points away from the relegation zone but it could have been even closer without these points.

The grading gets harder (and more subjective) as we go through the top five sides, as expectations are a bit higher.  Like how can you give sides that took home nine points less than four Santas?  Watch me.

Liverpool - 

But, but, we had three wins, including a 5-1 thrashing of Arsenal.  Yeah, but you lost the won that really mattered to Man City 1-2.  Great match that one.

Spurs - 

But, but we got nine points.  Yeah but you lost to Wolves 1-3.  The schedule was soft enough (Everton, Bournemouth, Wolves, Cardiff) that 12 points was not unrealistic.  If our graphics department was any good, we might have given 3-1/2 Santas, recognizing that Wolves can be tricky (see below).


Man City - 

But, but they only got six points and lost to Crystal Palace and Leicester.  Surely this was two Santa stuff.  Yeah but they won the one that really mattered - Liverpool.

Arsenal - 

But, but we got seven points.  Yeah, but you got pummeled by Liverpool and only managed a draw against Brighton.  Nine points was surely doable.

Chelsea - 

But, but we got seven points.  Yeah you beat Crystal Palace and Watford but you lost to Leicester and drew 0-0 with Southampton. With those fixtures 12 points was possible and certainly more than seven could have been expected.


We already got the two bottom performers - Huddersfield and Newcastle - but we'll add one more.

Everton - 

Just three points by beating Burnley while losing to Tottenham (2-6, ouch), Brighton and Leicester.  They started the holidays just two behind Man United but now trail them by 11 and have slipped to 11th in the table.

Wolves in Wolves Clothing

Despite a rather mediocre holiday (we gave it ) Wolverhampton can play you quite tough, as Tottenham found out in the 1-3 defeat at Wembley.  Seems like they can give the top six squads fits.  Turns out I was basically right.  Looking at each team's performance against the top six sides (Liverpool, Man City, Tottenham, Chelsea, Arsenal, and Man United), only Man City and Liverpool have collected more points than Wolves.   To reflect that fact that top six teams have fewer chances to get points against top six teams, since they don't play themselves,  I did it again calculating percentage of possible points taken from top six sides.  Even doing that, Wolves are still 4th best.  Full table below. 

	Points	Possible	Percent
Man City	13	18	72%
Liverpool	12	21	57%
Chelsea	8	15	53%
Wolves	9	21	43%
Tottenham	6	15	40%
Leicester	6	18	33%
Arsenal	5	18	28%
Crystal Palace	5	21	24%
Brighton	4	18	22%
West Ham	4	18	22%
Southampton	5	24	21%
Watford	3	18	17%
Man United	2	15	13%
Everton	1	18	6%
Burnley	0	18	0%
Fulham	0	21	0%
Cardiff	0	21	0%
Bournemouth	0	21	0%
Newcastle	0	21	0%
Huddersfield	0	21	0%

Ooh look at that, another category with Newcastle at the bottom

Odds and Ends

Ugly Christmas Sweater Goal - There were some not so pretty goals but none were uglier than this one from Southampton.  The ugly goal comes at about 23 seconds into the video.  So why wasn't this called back for offside?  All together class, because the man in the offside position never got involved in active play or interfered with the keeper.  We recommend watching the whole video to see the two brilliant goals from Felipe Anderson.

Sir, your watch is beeping.  Time has expired. Sir?

Do I Have to Do Everything Myself? - Felipe Anderson continues to be not only hot but versatile.  He already had two goals to bring West Ham back from an 0-1 deficit to Southampton (see above).  But as time ran down, he also became Assistant Timekeeper, making sure that Craig Pawson knew that time had expired (see right).  Anderson now has eight goals, equal 9th in the EPL.  No word on whether he does windows.

That Was 90 Minutes I Could Have Been Watching the Mummers - Everton and Leicester certainly did nothing to advance the cause of the EPL with that stinker.  The Leicester goal was nice enough but the game was basically a collection of poor touches and misdirected passes.  The Newcastle - Fulham 0-0 draw would have been in this category except it wasn't on New Year's Day.

It Had to Happen Sometime - Arsenal's 2-0 half time lead over Burnley was the first time this season that the Gunners went into the locker room ahead at the half.  More importantly, they actually held the lead at full time.

Prognosticators - As the announcer was suggesting that Liverpool's response to Arsenal's early goal boded well for an interesting match,  Dennis and I were thinking the opposite.  With Liverpool scoring unleashed we both agreed they would be up 4-1 at half time.  Two of us were right.  One of the more disappointing fixtures.

And Now, the FA Cup

This weekend is the third round of the FA Cup, the first round in which the top tiers participate.  You can go back to this BFS post from 2014, for a more complete explanation of the competition.  Looks like limited TV coverage at this point so you may have to check out streaming services.  This article in the Guardian provides some of the match-ups of interest.