Newcastle United went through a tough time last season after both Dwight Gayle and Joselu failed to find any real goalscoring form despite Dwight Gayle's phenomenal 26-goal Championship season just the year before. Here at NewcastleFansTV, we have analysed the truth behind Newcastle and especially Dwight Gayle's goalscoring misfortune.
The 17/18 season saw The Magpie's No.9 Dwight Gayle only bag 6 goals, that's around a quarter of what he managed in the Championship just the year before. Many people suggest that this is due to the fact that Dwight isn't good enough to play top-flight English football, but I believe differently.
During the 16/17 season, Matt Ritchie endured a fabulous debut season in the black and white shirt as he netted 12 goals and bagged many, many assists. Matt clearly shows Premier League quality, so why did he not follow up his previous season?
I believe that it is due to the way that Newcastle now cross the ball since their return to the Premier League. In the Championship, Newcastle would regularly drill the ball low into the box for their No.9 to make the run and poke the ball into the back of the net. This basic tactic produced many of Newcastle's 100 goals in the 16/17 season but for some reason, that all changed.
Newcastle United now seem to not bother with strategy when it comes to crossing and will regularly lose the ball to teams when they attempt to cross the ball to Dwight Gayle, even when he has defenders clearly towering above the 1.77m striker.
The answer to this crossing problem was supposed to be £5 million man Joselu but he seems to give every Newcastle fan flashbacks to Emmanuel Riviere. I do still rate the striker though and do belive that he could still provide a good backup option following a bright beginning to pre-season after scoring an emphatic finish in Newcastle's 2-2 draw with Hull at the KCOM on Tuesday evening.
Newcastle's problems could just lie in the creativity aspect towards goalscoring so if Newcastle do choose to make this change, it could add a good 10-15 goals into this Newcastle United team.