Chancel Mbemba has made a steady and good start to his Newcastle career and he seems to be improving as he gets more Premier League games under his belt.
His improvement in the Premier League hopefully will continue and the 21 year-old may already be our best player in the team and just last night he scored a spectacular goal for DR Congo from all of 30 yards out to win the game 2-1 against Gambon.
Chancel Mbemba in action against Arsenal
Where Chancel is excelling is in the Opta stats.
Swiss-based football statistics organization CIES Football Observatory, have ranked various players at each outfield position in the Premier League.
Chancel comes in at 12th in the center-back position with Arsenal´s Gabriel Paulista and Laurent Koscielny in first and second place respectively, but Chancel is at the top for players under 21 years of age.
No other Newcastle players are in the top 15 in any other position – which shows our players are not playing at or near their best.
Other Opta stats that show why he is already a very good player is that he has made more interceptions than any other central defender in the Premier League – and he has 26 of them so far.
He is only behind Jordan Amavi of Aston Villa in interceptions for all defenders in the Premier League at the moment.
That shows he can read the game very well even though he´s only just turned 21 and we expect him to still keep improving this season.
With Newcastle already in trouble this season we will need Mbemba to keep up his good form and we are hoping that his partner in central defense – caption Fabricio Coloccini – can settle down and play near his best form.
It´s going to be really important that happens in the 11 games to play before the end of the year if we are going to move away from bottom place in the league table.
We have some easier games coming up as follows and we have to start putting some wins on the board.
October Sun 18 16:00 H Norwich City Sun 25 12:00 A Sunderland Sat 31 15:00 H Stoke City November Sat 07 12:45 A Bournemouth Sat 21 15:00 H Leicester City Sat 28 15:00 A Crystal Palace
Steve McClaren rightly point out that in six of our first eight games we have played teams that finished in the top eight last season.
But coming up is the real test – can we can beat teams that did not finish in the top eight last season – and if we cannot we´ll be in trouble again this season.
Those last two fixtures – against Leicester City and Crystal Palace – are against teams currently in the top five.
Comments welcome.
8 comments so far
Jail for Ashley
Oct 13, 2015 at 9:34 AM
Comment #1Ashley Out !
Rotonda heights
Oct 13, 2015 at 9:38 AM
Comment #2OP
yes ash is the problem but seriously you wouldn’t swap Ancelotti a serial success with McLaren !!
Jib
Oct 13, 2015 at 9:40 AM
Comment #3If we can get Vestergaard or Matip in January that will be a good back four.
Janmaat – M’bemba – V or M – M’Babau
I still think Colo could do a job as DM/Sweeper he could become our curly headed Pirlo 🙂
hibbit
Oct 13, 2015 at 9:44 AM
Comment #4jib/jane/jeff what a sad little man/woman you are…………….i think the time has come for all posters on here to ignore this WUM and all his alias
firebug666
Oct 13, 2015 at 9:47 AM
Comment #5Well I gotta go out now, so I will leave you all to ignore Jib, and hope you have a good day.
BandB
Oct 13, 2015 at 9:53 AM
Comment #6This is the time last season when we suddenly shot up the league, from 18th place on seven points after eight games, to fifth place on 19 points after 12.
It saved our season.
The next four games are crucial. Any fewer than seven points before the international break starts and we are likely to be in the bottom three at Christmas.
This time last year, three of the teams in the bottom four went on to be relegated.
BandB
Oct 13, 2015 at 10:01 AM
Comment #7^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
TroubledToon
Oct 13, 2015 at 10:07 AM
Comment #8Didn’t Ed post this article a few weeks back? Or atleast something almost the same…