Newcastle United 1-0 Manchester City

A statistical summary

Well, well, well... what a result that was. Couldn't help but laugh when the presenter on TalkSport said we've been "rewarded" for our win with a trip to Old Trafford in the next round! Anyway, I just thought I'd do a short-ish statistical post because there were a few things I noticed about the stats from the game, particularly regarding Newcastle's efficiency with the ball.

City had two thirds of the possession on the night, ie. twice as much, or 100% more, of the ball than us. While every game is different, typically, statistics tend to gravitate towards those possession stats to at least some degree, eg. if a team has twice as much possession as another, you'd probably expect them to attempt twice as many passes, have twice the xG, twice the number of touches and/or shots from inside the opponents' box, and so on.

So, I'll start off by detailing the statistics that followed this pattern (or close enough), or at least suggested dominance in City's favour:

• Corners: Newcastle 4, Man City 7. (That's 75% more, but 100% give or take one corner.)

• Throw ins: Newcastle 16, Man City 25. (That's only 56% more, but round Newcastle's total down to the nearest 5 and City's up to the nearest 10, and it's 100%... in other words, an exchange during which City are on the attack on one side of the pitch and Newcastle's defenders block/tackle to concede a series of throws could bring those figures in line with the possession figures in the space of about 2 minutes... so it's close enough.)

• Shots off target: Newcastle 1, Man City 3 (200% more)

• Blocked shots: Newcastle 2, Man City 5 (150% more)

• Shots from outside the box: Newcastle 2, Man City 6 (200% more)

• Passes attempted: Newcastle 339, Man City 711 (110% more)

• Passes completed: Newcastle 281, Man City 638 (127% more)

Now, let's look at the stats that deviate from the pattern or, more holistically, the stats that suggest we matched or bested City, despite their possessive dominance:

• Shots: Newcastle 7-10 Man City - cross referencing that with possession demonstrates that Newcastle had 1 shot per 4.7% possession we had (or 1 shot per 4 minutes and 14 seconds of possession), whereas City only had 1 shot per 6.7% possession (or 1 shot per 6 minutes and 2 seconds of possession), making us 43% more efficient than City at getting shots away.

• Shots on target: Newcastle 4-2 Man City - obviously this demonstrates better accuracy by Newcastle, but using the same calculation as for shots, above, it means we managed 1 shot on target per 8 minutes and 15 seconds of possession, compared to City's 1 shot on target per 33 minutes and 30 seconds of possession. This makes us 406% (four hundred and six percent) more efficient than them, when it comes to testing the goalkeeper.

• Big chances: Newcastle 2-1 Man City. In simple terms, that's twice as many big chances from half as much possession. We missed one each :D

• Touches inside opposition box: 19-16.

• Shots inside opposition box: 5-4

• Dribbles attempted: 16-17

• Duels won: 51-41

• Aerial duels won: 10-6

• Successful tackles 24-16

• Successful interceptions 13-4

So, despite having to work very hard to get the ball, the directness of our play showed a level of efficiency way, way in advance of City's and largely thanks to our organisation, defensive prowess, determination, and aggression (particularly in the second half). Touches inside opposition box is particularly telling as that's where our goal came from... but if you divide minutes of the match using the same ratio as possession, that means we've had a touch in their box, on average, once every minute and 40 seconds that we've had the ball. By comparison, City needed four minutes and four seconds of possession, on average, to get a touch in our box.

In simple terms... we wanted it more. And this is why, despite not having several hundred-million-pound players on the bench, we will be able to do this all season (and beyond) against teams that are regarded to be bigger than us. We'll lose some too, but the fact that we have already proven that we can beat pretty much anyone in the world with these players gives us an exceptional foundation upon which to build.

Bring on Man Utd away.