Newcastle United's top four hopes assessed by stats experts after West Ham United defeat
What impact has the home defeat against West Ham United made on Newcastle United's hopes of a return to the Champions League?
Newcastle United’s recent upturn in form came to an end with a disappointing display in Monday’s home defeat against West Ham United.
A first-half header from Tomas Soucek and a rare goal from former Manchester United full-back Aaron Wan-Bissaka were enough to give the Hammers all three points at St James Park on a night when many expected Eddie Howe’s men to ease to all three points and continue their push towards a return to European football. The result may well have taken some by surprise - but not the Magpies manager, who delivered a mixed assessment of his side’s performance during a difficult 90 minutes.
He said: "I don’t think anything takes me by surprise in the Premier League, we know every team has qualities. We were the dominant team at half-time and the game would have been very different if we had equalised before the first half. I’m pretty pleased with the first 60 minutes albeit we’re losing the game 2-0. We opened them up and had chances to score.
“Up to that point I was pretty pleased but the last 30 minutes I didn’t enjoy. We tried a bit too hard to score. We’ll rue that when we watch the game back. For both goals we know we made individual mistakes. It was disappointing from our perspective. Very uncharacteristic from us because we’ve defended well in recent weeks. At the end we had players out of position, so I didn’t like the way we looked at the end. But up until that 60 minute mark I thought we were the dominant team.”
The defeat has left Newcastle sat four points and six places adrift of the top four as their attention turns towards a weekend visit to another side that are struggling to find form in the Premier League. Selhurst Park will be the Magpies destination as they take on a Crystal Palace side sat second from bottom in the table after winning just one of their opening 12 games of the season. But what are United’s chances of securing a top four spot ahead of their journey to South London? We take a look with statistics provided by the experts at OPTA.
Premier League top four probability according to OPTA
Southampton, Ipswich Town, Leicester City, Everton, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Crystal Palace - all 0.00% West Ham United - 0.12% Bournemouth - 0.22% Brentford - 0.23% Nottingham Forest - 0.34% Fulham - 0.36% Manchester United - 1.51% Aston Villa - 4.84% Newcastle United - 11.38% Brighton and Hove Albion - 17.52% Tottenham Hotspur - 22.06% Chelsea - 54.17% Arsenal - 91.29% Manchester City - 96.10% Liverpool - 99.86%