Jamie Carragher believes that Newcastle United are really missing one of their injured key players at the minute after a disappointing defeat to Chelsea.
Newcastle have been leaking goals as of late and questions are being asked both about their defence and their goalkeeper who are really struggling.
Speaking on Sky Sports after the game on Monday, Carragher claimed that Nick Pope has been a huge miss for Newcastle and that Martin Dubravka simply hasn’t been good enough.
Carragher thinks Newcastle star is ‘one of the best’
Pope sustained a shoulder injury against Man United at the beginning of December and ever since Newcastle have really struggled to keep the ball out of their own net.
Sky Sports highlighted on Monday the huge shift there’s been in their defensive statistics, showing that they have conceded three or more goals in eight of their last 14 games, a shocking fact.
Dubravka’s save ratio is also lower than Pope’s as well as the amount of times he’s coming off of his line to sweep, though that was expected given the Slovakian’s previous history in this role.
Everybody knew that Dubravka wasn’t quite as good as Pope, but it does feel like people have really underestimated what the the 31-year-old brings to this Newcastle team and how much they were going to miss him.
On Pope, Carragher said: “Pope is a big part of this team. He’s one of the best shot stoppers in the Premier League and he sweeps up behind that high line and press that we’ve seen.”
Pope’s return could be huge for the Geordies
Newcastle have been slipping down the Premier League table since Pope picked up that shoulder injury, and it’s still expected to keep him out for a little while longer as he hopes to return in April.
Whether or not he’ll be thrown back into the team straight away by Eddie Howe is still unclear, but he could still have a big role to play for the team if they are still within reach of a European spot.
Right now, Newcastle are three points off of seventh which would be enough to qualify for the Europa Conference League and end the season on a high for the Magpies, but there’s a lot of work to be done to achieve that.
Newcastle really need the former Burnley man to come back stronger than ever and pull out some performances like he showed in the Champions League against PSG and AC Milan.
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