Interesting Stat

[g_harry]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/fo...inst-Newcastle-as-they-chase-home-record.html

We have kept 10 clean sheets at home this year - only bettered by Liverpool.

 

[DC_Boy]

good stat make it 11 v toon and we should be round about 8th by monday as I think we'll score at least once

 

[mattyspurs]

To be fair, that is quite a nice surprise for us. It just goes to show how consistent Woody is, and being able to utilise Ledley for the Premier League is. They are both so so important to us next season.

 

[Flute]

It shows how good our back four actually is. With excellent covers in talented Bale, Daws, Hutton, Gunter, and Chimbo, and behind them prospects like Dervitte and Adam Smith I feel this good defensive record will not be a one off either.

Happy days for years to come?

oh jah!

 

[AllSeeingEye]

Toon always seem to be a bogey for us though.

The last two seasons have been all Toon victories I think.

Even worse I believe the Toon had an awful run last year after we lost to them and then they didn't win again until they played us again.

I could be wrong though, my mind is a little hazy - I distinctly remember losing 3-1 to them in October 2007, I trudged halfway across a drenched New Orleans (knee deep in street floodings) to find the only Irish pub in the city with the game on, and me and the lady were the only two yids in the place, and we had two yank Toon fans carping on about how they were the better team blah blah.

Toon piss me off. They beat us at the reverse fixture this season as well!

So I've put money on them this time in the hope of losing it.

And I've backed Fulham and West Ham to compound my misery into cash.

 

[yidio]

official site claims it's 9, and we're after a 10th shut out vs barcodes.

 

[Shanks]

Gomes needs to take credit for this as well as the defense. But I also think the key part is that the midfield are working harder to defend the defenders too.

Before we always had a rather large gap between our midfield and defense, many a long range goal scored past us!

 

[DC_Boy]

remember we've beaten toon already once this season - just not in the lge

it was a tremendous victory tho - I think our only ever cup win up there (may be wrong though)

 

[Tickers]

It shows how good our back five actually is.

Fixed :up:

 

[lishiyo]

newcastle have been so lucky against us recently, playing us at the perfect time last year and then a late goal against us this year - their luck has to run out sometime though. we're not as suspect to long range goals anymore but still pretty poor in the air so i don't think we'll keep a clean sheet, but we should be able to score a few past them.

despite our good home defense, it's our away defense that we should be worried about, it seems we make more silly mistakes away (gomes errors, set piece 'moments', individual mistakes, poor late goals)

 

[InOffMeLeftShin]

Even more impressive is that we have only conceded 9 goals in 16 home games and that is pretty amazing considering our first two home games we lost 2-1 (so 5 in 14). In fact they are the only home games all season where we have conceded more than 1. We are on course to beat our all time record of 11 set back in 1919/20 season. mg:

That certainly seems like something solid to build on. That defensive unit, with the newly acquired Palacios, the ever improving Modric, the pace of Lennon and all the attacking options we now have (or new ones we will have next season including the return of Defoe) suggests we could do pretty well next year.

 

[Mr Gamgee]

wow, i didnt think wed kept that many. Thats very good considering we only had one under Ramos