Last season saw Newcastle have our fair share of injuries and suspensions and the major problem being a lot of these left key players out for extended periods of time. But how bad has it been in Eddie’s three full seasons? And which players are most prone to injury, and who is quick to anger? Well, await no further because the answers are here.

So firstly, this study applied to the 28 current first team players (Isaac Hayden, Garang Kuol, Ben Parkinson, Alex Murphy, Trevan Sanusi, Travis Hernes and players out on loan were disregarded as they have had no injuries or suspensions when at the club and most are youth team players or have been consistently out on loan) and is taken from 22/23, 23/24 and 24/25 using Transfermarkt for the data on both injuries and suspensions.

So, let’s start at the very obvious start point of our four new signings (Kelly, Vlachodimos, Ruddy and Osula) all have 0 in both the injuries and suspensions. The next player who struggles with no injury nor discipline was Martin Dubravka who (aside from his loan spell) has missed just one game when with Newcastle. The first outfielder to feature on this list was Lewis Hall who has missed just two games due to suspension issues last season. Also close to the least games missed were Mark Gillespie (6), Bruno (7), Tino (8), Gordon (8). We all know Bruno and Gordon never seem to get injured but Tino particularly surprised me especially with his well-documented ankle problems last season.

Now on the other end of the spectrum who misses the most games? Well, the top 6 isn’t really all too surprising. Emil Krafth takes first spot largely due to damaging his cruciate ligament and missing all 53 games we played across 22/23 and the first three of 23/24 taking his total to 56 total games missed. Matt Targett was second with 54 which if you consider the fact he earns £100,000 a week you’ve got to consider his future on Tyneside. Third is Mr Injury himself Callum Wilson who has missed 46 games over the last three seasons but we can almost guarantee that will hit the 50-mark come the end of this season (maybe even 60!). Fourth is Sven Botman (44) who suffered a massive ACL injury and is slowly recovering now after being rushed back from injury last time. The top 5 is rounded out by another non-surprising entry in Joe Willock who missed 43 games in the last three seasons. Sandro Tonali takes sixth because of his year long ban he missed 41 games.

Alexander Isak (36), Joelinton (33), Harvey Barnes (31) and surprisingly Nick Pope (29) round out the top 10.

And now to touch on another interesting statistic, the player with the worst discipline at Newcastle in the last three years is technically Sandro Tonali missing 41 games because of suspension, but non-betting offences it’s Joelinton who missed three games because of suspension in the 22/23 season and no more since (although that will definitely change) and Fabian Schar who missed three at the beginning of this season. In terms of best discipline (disregarding new signings) Botman, Lascelles, Wilson, Barnes, Targett, Isak, Tino, Miggy, Willock, Burn, Longstaff (0) all have the best disciplinary records in term of games missed due to suspension.

In terms of games missed for other reasons Gillespie and Krafth both have six because of registration reasons in the Champions League last season as neither made the squads, whereas Hall (2) and Murphy (1) have both also missed games for other reasons.

So to conclude that works out as 575 games missed by 28 players (24 is you disregard the four new players) which equates to 20.54 (or 23.96 without new signings) games missed per player over the last three seasons meaning each player missed on average 6.85 (7.99) games per season which doesn’t seem a lot but if all those come at once then that’s a staggering amount of time, over one whole month most months which is ridiculous to think of that each player on average has missed over a month per season. But with the hiring of new staff and hopefully the development of current staff, maybe just maybe the injury epidemic is behind us.

Joe Horn for Magpie 24/7