‘We can do better’ - Newcastle United star makes honest admission as stats highlight major problem

Tino Livramento believes Newcastle United are on track to improve their defensive record, despite shipping 15 goals in their last five Premier League matches. Newcastle’s 4-4 draw with Luton Town on Saturday saw the hosts go ahead twice in the first-half before finding themselves 4-2 behind within 17 minutes of the restart.

Livramento, who was introduced to the game at that point along with Harvey Barnes as the former Leicester City man helped to secure his side a point, believes that Newcastle can fix their recent defensive woes and that begins with hard work on the training pitch: “We’re back to one game a week, where we were playing two, so we have a lot more training and getting back to ironing out the finer things defensively.” Livramento said. 

“Going forward we know we can do better and concede less goals but I think the positive for us is knowing we came back [v Luton Town].”

Newcastle’s defensive woes since Christmas were highlighted on Match of the Day on Saturday night with stats showing Newcastle were ranked last in shots faced and shots on target faced. They were also joint second-last in goals conceded in that time and had an expected goals against figure of 17.3 - the worst in the division.

Despite this slump, Newcastle remain 9th in the Premier League and just two points behind 7th placed West Ham. It’s likely that at least the top seven of the league will qualify for European football and Livramento believes the squad are capable of finishing the season strongly. “We’ve got a good squad,” he said. “We really believe we can finish high up this season.”