Advantage Newcastle United | OneFootball

Newcastle United sitting pretty in the Premier League top three.

Ten points from a possible twelve, three wins and a draw.

What is not to like?

However, this isn’t what I am talking about when I am saying ‘Advantage Newcastle United’, well not directly.

What I am talking about is Europe.

Playing in Europe has always meant more matches for Premier League clubs.

That is obvious.

At the same time though, I don’t think it has sunk in with many people, just how crazy the extra demands are going to be with the new formats in the Champions League and the Europa League.

For everybody, it has been a slow start to the season, crazy that by the time we get to the next round of Premier League matches this coming weekend, in five weeks only four PL matches played by each of the 20 clubs.

If you now think it gets a lot busier for Newcastle United, then just look at our most likely rivals for a spot near the top of the Premier League table.

This is before you then add in all the extra matches and travel in the two international ‘breaks’ in October and November, with the usual suspects having generally far more players travelling and playing than Newcastle United.

Let’s just stick to domestic games though.

Here I have listed a number of dates below, listing how many more matches Newcastle United will have been guaranteed to have played between now (17 September 2024) and that date, compared to those Premier League clubs competing in Champions League or Europa League:

7 November 2024

Newcastle United 7 matches (6 Premier League and 1 Carabao Cup)

Our PL competitors 11 (6 Premier League, 1 Carabao Cup and 4 in Europe)

12 December 2024

Newcastle United 12 matches (11 Premier League and 1 Carabao Cup)

Our PL competitors 18 (11 Premier League, 1 Carabao Cup and 6 in Europe)

30 January 2025

Newcastle United 21 matches (19 Premier League and 1 Carabao Cup and 1 FA Cup)

Our PL competitors 29 (19 Premier League, 1 Carabao Cup, 1 FA Cup and 8 in Europe)

20 February 2025 (If playing in the extra knockout round play-off stage of Champions League or Europa League)

Newcastle United 23 matches (21 Premier League and 1 Carabao Cup and 1 FA Cup)

Our PL competitors 33 (21 Premier League, 1 Carabao Cup, 1 FA Cup and 10 in Europe)

13 March 2025 (If having played in the extra knockout round play-off stage of Champions League or Europa League and having got through it)

Newcastle United 26 matches (24 Premier League and 1 Carabao Cup and 1 FA Cup)

Our PL competitors 38 (24 Premier League, 1 Carabao Cup, 1 FA Cup and 12 in Europe)

Conclusions

This is just crazy.

No wonder players such as Rodri are talking about players potentially going on striker over the increased number of matches.

As I said, not every English club in the Champions League and Europa League is guaranteed to be extra knockout play-off round stage in February 2025 BUT it is very likely many of the six Premier League clubs will find themselves doing so.

Whilst that date of by 13 March 2025, you only need to have reached the last 16 for that to apply, the number of games stated (unless you weren’t in the play-off knockout round, then you can subtract two games from the total).

However, whichever way you look at it, this is an incredible amount of matches more than those PL clubs who aren’t in the Champions League or Europa League.

Plus, it doesn’t take into account extra Carabao Cup matches for those who get past the round next midweek and/or any club getting past FA Cup third round.

As I said earlier, this is very much advantage Newcastle United.

It doesn’t mean NUFC will automatically do better in these coming months than those clubs with the extra European matches, BUT it does mean that Newcastle have an advantage that will increase their chances of doing better than otherwise, compared to those clubs in Europe.

Chelsea of course are in the third tier European competition and whilst that has not quite as many matches as the other two competitions, there is generally even more travelling involved due to the location of many of the clubs in that Euro competition.

Up to this point, Newcastle United have actually had to play one MORE match than those six PL clubs in the Europa League and Champions League.

Having picked up the 10 points from 12 in that time period, the scales are very much shifting now to advantage Newcastle United.