⭐Upside Featured Article: More Newcastle players hit 2,500 minutes than any other team in a top Euro league – can they do it again?

Jul 25, 2023

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This week we are featuring an article from The Athletic entitled “More Newcastle players hit 2,500 minutes than any other team in a top Euro league – can they do it again?”. Each month we will publish these types of articles.

Title: “More Newcastle players hit 2,500 minutes than any other team in a top Euro league – can they do it again?”.

By Jacob Whitehead

Last season nine of Newcastle’s outfield players appeared in over 2,500 league minutes. At no other Premier League side did as many players reach that total. In the last five seasons, only Wolverhampton Wanderers matched it, in 2018-19.

And Newcastle were not just domestic standouts: no other club in Europe’s top five leagues achieved the feat. The nine players were Kieran Trippier, Fabian Schar, Sven Botman, Dan Burn, Bruno Guimaraes, Joelinton, Joe Willock, Miguel Almiron, and Sean Longstaff.

Come the end of the season, they were part of a squad that was battered and bruised — but unbowed. Burn’s shoulder was repeatedly dislocating after Christmas. Pope had surgery on a long-standing hand injury before the final game of the season. Guimaraes played with one working ankle. Eddie Howe joked that Joelinton was running through a brick wall each week — and rarely failed to break through it.

Through it all, they played. The centre-back pairing of Botman and Schar — who finished the season with the joint-best defensive record in the Premier League — played 35 of 38 games together. Consistency became one of Newcastle’s superpowers, part of the reason they got into the Champions League.

Not that Newcastle were immune to injury absences. Take a look at this data, pulled for The Athletic by Premier Injuries.

It shows that Newcastle players missed 160 games through injury, the fourth-highest total in the league, behind only Liverpool (184), Nottingham Forest (214), and Chelsea (216). The size of the latter two squads are also notable.

However, when fringe players are removed — those who played less than 50 per cent of minutes when available over the last two seasons — a different picture emerges.

Many of Newcastle’s long-term injuries were to players not in Howe’s first- choice XI — players like Emil Krafth, Jamaal Lascelles, Jonjo Shelvey, Matt Ritchie and Matty Longstaff.

The table below shows that just 66 games were missed by Newcastle’s core players combined — the fourth-best in the league, behind West Ham United (65), Crystal Palace (49) and Manchester City (44).

To some extent, Newcastle relying on a core group who played more than 2,500 minutes each is due to relatively thin squad depth. Howe is not able to rotate as much some clubs — for example, Guimaraes was the only available deep-lying midfielder at times but he played on while managing his injured ankle. Compare that with Manchester City, the Premier League champions, who had two players who reached the 2,500-minute mark; or Manchester United, who had three. Arsenal had six.

Looking at the next table, ranking Newcastle players by how many minutes they played in the league, many would have been staggered to see 32-year-old Trippier at the top with 3,341 minutes. He had been expected to be absent with injuries more — as was Callum Wilson. Somehow they kept playing.

Looking across Europe, the teams who led each league in players appearing in over 2,500 minutes were Newcastle (nine players), Lens (eight), Freiburg (seven), Rayo Vallecano (seven) and Napoli (six). It could be argued that each of these overperformed.

Newcastle finished in the top four. Napoli won their first Scudetto since the days of Maradona. Lens pressured Paris Saint-Germain in a shock title challenge. Freiburg were one win away from reaching the Champions League for the first time in their history. Rayo Vallecano finished 11th in just their second year back in La Liga (with the fourth-lowest value squad in the league).

There is some correlation between what these relatively modest teams achieved — compared to the established European giants with their vast Financial Fair Play capacity — and their ability to keep core players on the pitch. Newcastle’s achievement is doubly impressive because of their playing style.

Howe transformed them from Steve Bruce’s low block to a dynamic high- pressing side, despite being one of the older squads in the league. Passes per defensive action (PPDA) counts how many passes a team allows the opposition to make before attempting to win the ball back with a defensive action, such as a tackle, interception or clearance. A low number means they work more intensely, allowing the opposition fewer passes.

Newcastle’s PPDA average was 10.5, the fourth-best in the Premier League, showing they were one of the league’s hardest-working teams. At the same time, that core group played week in, week out.

With the new season approaching, and recruitment so far quite limited, two questions are becoming increasingly urgent: How did Newcastle keep their core players fit last season? And can they do it again?

There are clues that can be gleaned, particularly from club doctor Paul Catterson.

Even during the under-investment of Mike Ashley’s ownership, Newcastle researched player welfare. Before 2021’s takeover, the club looked into the impact of genetics and movement patterns on availability, with a view to introducing potential preventative measures.

Much of that was led by Catterson, who has been at St James’ Park since 2009, joining during Alan Shearer’s stint as caretaker manager. In 2012, Newcastle became the first Premier League club to work with Irish company Orreco, carrying out regular blood testing to monitor players. Seven other Premier League sides have since followed their lead, but it is a system through which Newcastle still try to find marginal gains.

Its first use at Newcastle was triggered after Euro 2012, when Catterson noticed a player had returned to pre-season training out of sorts. Existing markers — heart rate, urine testing — provided no explanation.

“He just wasn’t right when he arrived, his demeanour, his mood, out on the pitch,” Catterson told the Optimized podcast in 2021. “He had a few niggles that none of us could put our fingers on.

Blood testing revealed clues indicating it might be a training-load issue, and the club was able to personalise his program. In the intervening 11 years, this research has become much more detailed, with personalised training programes now a default — helping maximise matchday availability.

“Athletes are wired to overreach,” Dr Brian Moore, Orreco’s founder, told Forbes last February. “There are certain times though, where the law of diminishing marginal returns will apply. If you put more in, you’ll get less back and get sick or hurt.”

A pinprick of blood, taken from the earlobe, can return information in four to six minutes on several biomarkers, including metabolic data (how tired muscle tissue is), mechanical (any damage to tissue), and oxidative (production of oxygen for recovery).

The speed of the test means they can be used as part of preseason training, for example to establish lactic acid levels during sprint tests, with players removed whose levels are too high. Newcastle also take samples at the start of the season to act as baselines.

“We try to risk-stratify the players,” Catterson explained. “They’re put into certain categories. The higher-risk categories, we intervene straight away (if the biomarkers flag an issue), alerting the coaches they are high-risk”.

These ‘red flags’ are compared to individualised markers taken on each of the two days before and after a match.

“Players recover at different rates,” said Catterson. “I know players who will be able to go on the grass on matchday plus one, but there are those who can’t do that on matchday plus three.”

Howe is noted for buying into this kind of research. It appears to visibly impact his in-game decision-making, treating players’ bodies as individuals, and making substitutions accordingly. Callum Wilson, for example, has endured injury issues throughout his career. Last season he only completed 90 minutes in the league on three occasions, but bringing him off possibly helped the 31-year-old be available to appear in 31 Premier League matches, just the second time he has hit this mark.

To assist recovery, Newcastle ask players to use an app that tracks sleep, performance data, biomarkers and nutrition. For example, it sends push notifications to remind them to snack before travelling, and syncs with the menus at local restaurants so players can satisfy their nutrition plans. The club’s training program is also uploaded.

One challenge is ensuring players buy into what could be seen as dry scientific material. Newcastle have opted to use a traffic light system, explaining quickly where players’ bodies are at.

“The players that I deal with have a huge amount of talent,” said Catterson. “Trying to make them differentiate themselves from someone with a similar amount of talent comes down to how they handle themselves outside the training schedules.
“It almost becomes competitive. Like the body composition tests — who can get the lowest body fat. If you can harness that in the right way, you can take things forward.
“The cynicism about sports science is that we’re trying to be careful and mollycoddle players. We’re actually trying to be more bullish in using objective data to make those players available.”

Of course, there is always an element of luck involved. All the research in the world cannot prevent some injuries — a broken leg in a tackle, landing awkwardly from a header. Newcastle have been relatively lucky in that regard.

Not being involved in midweek European football may have helped them in the race for the top four, especially a string of good results before the World Cup break when the Champions League group stage was in full swing.

To reduce the risk of injuries going forward, there is ongoing improvement at the club. The club’s takeover in October 2021 by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund led to upgrades at Darsley Park training ground, including new hydrotherapy and plunge pools — helpful not just for long-term rehabilitation (with Emil Krafth and Matty Longstaff making use of them during their recoveries from ACL injuries), but also short-term recovery. These facilities began being used midway through last season. The infamous picture of Newcastle players taking an ice bath in a wheelie bin is long in the past. Newcastle have also applied to the council for planning permission to install a larger gym. Entertainingly, new signing Sandro Tonali noted in Italy that the gym at AC Milan was bigger while being shown the facilities.

“We can now look forward and start to build and I can get the best in class,” Catterson told the Newcastle Chronicle last June, discussing the takeover’s impact. “If we want certain pieces of equipment or certain members of staff, we can now go out and source what we think is the best.”

As well as improvements at the training ground, there have been changes in the club’s medical department. Long-time physio Derek Wright, who spent 38 years at the club, stepped down at the end of 2021-22. In October, he was replaced by Danny Murphy, the former head physio at Charlton Athletic, who previously worked with England Under-21s, La Liga, West Ham and Crystal Palace. Nathan Ring, part of the current England Under-21 set-up, also joined Newcastle as a senior physio. Both know director of football Dan Ashworth from their time with the FA.

Earlier this season, Howe paid tribute to another club physio, Daniel Marti, for helping Almiron return early from a thigh injury. Almiron himself told club media that Marti should win the ‘Unsung Hero of the Season’ award.

In November 2021, head of performance Dan Hodges arrived from AFC Bournemouth at the same time as Howe. Hodges leads Newcastle’s sport science department — as well as acting as Howe’s personal trainer during early morning gym sessions.

Howe has discussed the importance of this part of his day. It is where he can switch attention to the working day ahead, wrestling with questions, burning off excess energy so he is solely devoted to the hours to come.

Among those problems for 2023-24 is the trial of competing on multiple fronts, including midweek matches in the club’s first Champions League campaign for 20 years. Last April, a senior source at the club told The Athletic: “Are we ready for it? No. Is our squad big enough? No.”

The squad is beginning to swell, and Newcastle are planning several more additions — though some may come through the loan market — so that they will have greater ability to rotate.

For example, after Sandro Tonali’s arrival, look at the depth the club now have at the No 8 position, with Tonali, Guimaraes, Joelinton, Sean Longstaff, Joe Willock, Elliot Anderson, Anthony Gordon and youngster Lewis Miley all able to play there. Nevertheless, other positions — notably centre-back and No 6 — are still relatively shallow.

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