Newcastle United have got the worst penalty record in Europe by far, as the stats were shared by a member of the Toon faithful on their Twitter page.
Newcastle have by far the worst penalty record in Europe.
(It’s still shocking how few pens we actually get) pic.twitter.com/MZiT9RUCUf
— ToonDeepDive (@ToonDeepDive) June 15, 2020
As per the stats, the Magpies have received a mere five spot kicks out of their last 105 matches, but have only been successful in converting just 20 per cent of those, or one out of the five.
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The next worse team is French side Montpellier HSC, but their conversion rate is half, significantly better than that of NUFC.
Fellow Premier League rivals Norwich City and Everton come next on the list, whilst Manchester City and Manchester United are also mentioned.
Considering every other team on the list has received double figures in terms of penalties, perhaps supporters of the St. James’ Park outfit can feel themselves to be slightly aggrieved as to only receiving five, however, given their poor conversion ratio, maybe this is not as bad as it looks.
This somewhat crazy stat could also be a stumbling block to the upcoming restart of the season in the English top flight, as Newcastle players may be more likely to miss any potential spot kicks given to them based off of their relatively poor conversion.
Penalty kicks provide a welcome opportunity to score, as the player effectively has a free shot on goal from 12 yards with only the keeper to beat, and United may need these in order to grind out enough points for their safety.
The side from the North East currently find themselves fairly comfortable in 13th place in England’s highest division on 35 points, eight off of the relegation zone with nine games left to play, but there is still time for that gap to get smaller if they are not careful, and netting penalties would arguably go a long way as to widening it.
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Geordies, are you surprised by this stat? Comment below!
