Premier League clubs rated on 2021/22 season – Newcastle United ‘E’ first half but second half… | OneFootball

How would you rank the 20 Premier League clubs on the 2021/22 season just ended?

Well, one newspaper has taken on the task of rating how each of the twenty has got on.

The Mail declaring…’Now that the dust has settled, Sportsmail assesses all 20 teams on their performances this season and what needs to be improved ahead of the next campaign.’

Often in these situations / articles they have the writer who usually covers each particular club, contributing that particular team’s overview and ranking.

However, in this latest one from The Mail, it is Adam Shergold who has done the entire thing, not Craig Hope contributing the Newcastle United section and rating.

So what has a random journalist judged this past season to be for Newcastle United and the other 19 Premier League clubs?

This is The Mail write up and rating for Newcastle United:

‘A season in two acts and all’s well that ends well.

Considering that Newcastle went winless in their first 14 league games and found themselves rooted to the bottom of the table, it’s a minor miracle they’ve ended up ensconced in mid-table.

There have been two transformative factors, of course. The colossal wealth of the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund, who bought out the club in early October, was always going to have an instant impact.

January signings proved shrewd and sensible, with £33m Bruno Guimaraes the stand-out performer and very quickly adopted as a cult figure.

The second decisive factor was the owners’ decision to appoint Eddie Howe as manager to replace the deeply unpopular Steve Bruce in early November.

Howe’s impact was swift and positive, proving a firm hand on the tiller and relegation simply hasn’t been a concern since that nine-match unbeaten run between December and March.

With hindsight, Howe had the perfect character and temperament to get Newcastle’s season back on the rails amid all the post-takeover noise.

This mid-table finish should represent just the beginning. Richer than any other club in the world, Newcastle will inevitably be linked with every half-decent player this summer.

But they’re not going to turn into the Galacticos 2.0 overnight. They’ll recruit in the areas they need and continue building.

You’d anticipate them pushing to finish in the top six next season but the possibilities, all of a sudden, are endless.

Grade: E (first half) / B (second half)’

I think the rating for Newcastle United’s first half of the season is / was pretty straightforward, when you manage only one win and eleven points from the opening 19 games, then E is surely the only option, unless of course you had even lower ratings allowed.

Well I think the only way to have a proper decision on this is to see the context, what ratings have been given to the other 19 Premier League clubs by the man from The Mail, to then judge the NUFC (Eddie Howe!) second half rating.

The Premier League clubs and their rankings from The Mail journalist:

A – Man City, Liverpool, Brentford, Brighton

B – Newcastle United (second half of season), Tottenham, West Ham, Chelsea, Crystal Palace

C – Wolves, Arsenal, Aston Villa, Leicester

D – Man Utd, Southampton, Burnley, Everton, Leeds

E – Newcastle United (first half of season), Norwich, Watford

There is no need to lose any sleep over stuff like this BUT honestly, ranking Eddie Howe and Newcastle United’s second half of the season only on a par with Crystal Palace and a level below Brentford and Brighton???

In the final 19 games, Eddie Howe’s team picked up 38 points…Palace only picked up ten points more over the entire 38 games, the same with Brentford who only picked up eight more points (over the full season) than NUFC’s second half of the season.

There does appear to be a concerted effort by the media to try and make out that Eddie Howe has done an ok job but actually nothing really that special. You do always have that feeling as well that there is every likely to be a London bias. If you take out the obvious Liverpool and Man City A grades, then all of the other six clubs (apart from Newcastle United) are London(ish) clubs. Brentford and Brighton (who might as well be seen as a London club) getting an A grade, then West Ham, Chelsea, Tottenham and Palace all getting a B, the same rating as Eddie Howe’s unbelievable second half of the season – where he created history as the first manager in the PL era to save a club from relegation despite not winning any of the first 14 games AND doing it in such style!

If you needed any further proof…the Premier League form table for the final 19 PL games of the 2021/22 season, number of points gained (out of maximum 57) and then breakdown of results after each club:

51 Liverpool Won 16 Drawn 3 Lost 0

46 Man City Won 14 Drawn 4 Lost 1

38 Newcastle United Won 12 Drawn 2 Lost 5

35 Tottenham Won 11 Drawn 2 Lost 6

34 Arsenal Won 11 Drawn 1 Lost 7

33 Chelsea Won 9 Drawn 6 Lost 4

27 Leicester Won 7 Drawn 6 Lost 6

27 Man Utd Won 7 Drawn 6 Lost 6

25 Crystal Palace Won 6 Drawn 7 Lost 6

25 West Ham Won 7 Drawn 4 Lost 8

24 Brighton Won 6 Drawn 6 Lost 7

23 Brentford Won 7 Drawn 2 Lost 10

23 Wolves Won 7 Drawn 2 Lost 10

23 Aston Villa Won 6 Drawn 5 Lost 8

22 Burnley Won 6 Drawn 4 Lost 9

20 Everton Won 6 Drawn 2 Lost 11

19 Leeds Won 5 Drawn 4 Lost 10

19 Southampton Won 5 Drawn 4 Lost 10

12 Norwich Won 3 Drawn 3 Lost 13

9 Watford Won 2 Drawn 3 Lost 14

Eddie Howe and Newcastle United averaging exactly 2.00 points per game in the second half of the season, that would equate to 76 points over 38 matches. A total which would have got you third place this (2021/22) season just ended, whereas it would have been enough for second in 2020/21.

Does anybody honestly think that if any of the likes of Palace, Brentford, Brighton, Spurs, West Ham, Arsenal and Chelsea had managed to do what Eddie Howe has done, they wouldn’t have got the highest rating (and acclaim) possible from the media?

Good look to the likes of Graham Potter and Thomas Frank who have done great jobs BUT for anybody to suggest that Eddie Howe doesn’t deserve at least the same (in reality, should be higher) as that pair if you are basing it on Howe’s and Newcastle’s second half of the season, then you clearly have an agenda going on.