Foot & Soccer Soccer Match Reports, Football News
The season so far has been a very hard one to judge as a Newcastle fan. Our own players will openly admit we have not reached the heights we are capable of, yet our results so far have overall been very positive.
Although many factors will be contributors to our ability to still grind out results, such as individual moments of real quality and a little bit of luck, I believe the importance of Nick Pope’s return is impossible to overstate.
Other than our recent outing at Fulham, Pope has been an absolute stone wall in goal this season. His ability with his feet hasn’t gotten any less shaky, but his shot-stopping ability is undeniably leagues ahead of his understudy Dubravka.
Without Pope’s incredible save from Cunha’s volley at Wolves, we’d be two points worse off. His save from Maddison’s curling strike at home to Spurs is potentially the difference between victory and defeat in and of itself. He has made a multitude of saves already this season that I’d argue Dubravka would not have made last season.
Having a keeper of Pope’s shot-stopping ability is one of the clubs biggest current assets, and his big saves so far this season are a major contributor as to how we have got such strong results out of arguably mediocre performances. Without him, we could easily be looking at a significantly lower points tally, and the atmosphere at the club would be ever the more hostile as a result.
Despite his subpar performance at Craven Cottage (where he still made eight saves to keep us in the match before Fulham made it 3-1 in stoppage time), Pope has a strong case for being the most important player in our team in terms of the potential downfall that could come if he were absent.
It’s a fair argument to make that, had he remained fit throughout last season, we would almost certainly have a high level of European football to get excited for again this season
Source link : https://www.nufcblog.co.uk/2024/09/27/the-unsung-hero-from-newcastle-uniteds-start-to-2024-25/
Author : Oden Hudson
Publish date : 2024-09-27 16:14:50
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.
