2017/18 Player of the Season
Well what a season!
And from ‘match day one’ you’ve been voting for your player of the season.
The man you’ve rated as the best of the bunch is MARTIN DÚBRAVKA with an average game rating of 7.3.
The Newcastle stopper has played 12 times for the Magpies since his January loan move from Sparta Prague and has been a revelation since his arrival winning 6 of those games keeping 4 clean sheets in the process. The stopper conceded just two goals in those games at St James Park and can boast victories over Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea. With a minimal buy out clause in his loan deal surely it’s a ‘no-brainer’ to keep the 29 year old Slovak International long term.
Your second spot went to our Captain and leader Jamaal Lascelles. You gave the Newcastle number 6 a 6.7 match rating for a player who also made the Opta team of the year. Playing 34 times and scoring 3 goals the lad has been immense again this season with the only craziness being Southgate seems to have actually lost his number?! So much for picking form players!
In third… ‘he’s one of our own’! It may have taken this long for the lad to win over the Newcastle faithful but Rafa had no hesitation in putting him straight back in his team as soon as he’d recovered from his early season injury. A rating of 6.5 then over his 20 games.
Unsurprising also perhaps, after Rafa desperate to add quality to his squad, that two of the top in our ratings were players the manager added during the winter window, with Kenedy making fourth spot. Indeed the impact of these two in particular can be seen from the difference in points gained in the first half of the season (18) to those in the second (26).
You'd have to think if the season had gone on for another 10 games Diame's second half season form may have just seen him run away with it too.
Shown are your ratings for every player to pull on a first team shirt this season and the table has some interesting numbers on it. An average rating of 6.4 over his last 9 games for example was not enough to keep Perez out of the bottom 6 rated players. Unsurprisingly though, Joselu still managed a worse rating at 4.7.
And with Gayle only managing 5.2, Mitrovic 5.4 (from his 7 appearances) it leaves Slimani as Newcastle top rated striker. New forward anyone?
So, congratulations to Martin, whilst Lascelles was undoubtedly the most consistent of those here all season.