This is the Eddie Howe Chelsea and Arsenal St James’ Park reality – Zero surprise

Arsenal and Chelsea losing at St James’ Park in the space of a few days, Eddie Howe and his Newcastle United team with two wins and two clean sheets.

I only have one question.

Why is anybody surprised?

This is what Eddie Howe does.

In these last ten months since the very late and cruel 3-2 defeat to Man City in January, Newcastle United have only lost once at St James’ Park. That was the Brighton smash and grab when in reality, Newcastle were by far the better team and simply didn’t take their clear chances, the Seagulls scoring with their first attack on 35 minutes.

Anyway, back to Arsenal and Chelsea.

These are the results under Eddie Howe against these two teams at St James’ Park:

Newcastle 2 Arsenal 0

Newcastle 1 Chelsea 0

Newcastle 0 Arsenal 2

Newcastle 1 Arsenal 0

Newcastle 4 Chelsea 1

Newcastle 2 Chelsea 0

Newcastle 1 Arsenal 0

It was four wins out for five before this past week and so why should anybody be surprised that it is now six wins out of seven against this pair at SJP?

The record against Chelsea and Arsenal at St James’ Park is:

Played 7 Won 6 Drawn 0 Lost 1 Goals scored 11 Goals conceded 3

Six wins and five clean sheets in the seven games, amazing stats.

Since Eddie Howe took over on 8 November 2021, Newcastle United have played 21 matches (all competitions) at St James’ Park against the Premier League Big Six clubs, these have been the results:

Newcastle v Man City – Played 5 Won 1 Drawn 2 Lost 2

Newcastle v Man U – Played 3 Won 2 Drawn 1 Lost 0

Newcastle v Liverpool – Played 3 Won 0 Drawn 0 Lost 3

Newcastle v Tottenham – Played 3 Won 3 Drawn 0 Lost 0

Newcastle v Chelsea – Played 3 Won 3 Drawn 0 Lost 0

Newcastle v Arsenal – Played 4 Won 3 Drawn 0 Lost 1

Newcastle v Premier League Big Six – Played 21 Won 12 Drawn 3 Lost 6

Conclusions?

If you take out the results against bogey side Liverpool it becomes played 18, with 12 wins and only three defeats.

Whilst if you only take the results against Man U, Chelsea, Arsenal and Tottenham, you get played 13 and won 11, one draw and just the one defeat!

Nobody was pretending this week’s two Newcastle United matches would be easy at St James’ Park, however, plenty of positives could be taken from these last three years overall under Eddie Howe, especially now we can add these latest two home wins this past week against ‘Big Six’ clubs.