Nick Pope has been a prominent feature in Newcastle United’s starting eleven. The 31-year-old goalkeeper is one of the most important players for the club. The high-flying Newcastle have needed the Englishman’s presence at the back several times this season.
The 31-year-old Nick Pope has had an impressive start to the Premier League season 2023/24. The Newcastle United keeper has turned up with 6 clean sheets in his first fourteen matches this season. Pope has also made five appearances in the club’s UEFA Champions League campaign this season.
Newcastle United plays across all competitions including the Premier League, Carabao Cup, UEFA Champions League, and the FA Cup. Them having to play regular games every 3-4 days constantly for the first time in a couple of decades. The Magpies have been struggling with injuries this season so far.
This effort from #NUFC’s Nick Pope has been nominated for PL Save of the Month pic.twitter.com/dSQh9EVkeQ
— Newcastle Fans TV (@NewcastleFansTV) November 30, 2023
Newcastle United faced Manchester United at the St. James’ Park on December 2nd, 2023. Wherein they managed to win with a comfortable score of 1-0. Which pushed them forward to the 5th spot in the Premier League after the first 14 game weeks.
The Magpies faced an unfortunate moment in the 86th minute of the match when their star keeper, Nick Pope, suffered an injury that led to his substitution. This season so far, Nick Pope, has managed to produce some fantastic performances for Newcastle United in the Premier League.
This season he has produced some fantastic stats for the Magpies, noting a few, 74.1% save percentage, 2.9 saves per match, and 1.3 xG prevented. They are notching him to be one of the best goalkeepers across the Premier League.
⚪️⚫️ Eddie Howe on Pope injury: "It looks like Nick's dislocated his shoulder".
"His shoulder has come out of his joint… it doesn’t look good for him". pic.twitter.com/eYY9Y1gaMA
— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) December 2, 2023
The report that came during the post-match by the Magpies’ boss was, “It looks like Nick’s dislocated his shoulder”. He followed that with what happened, “His shoulder has come out of his joint… it doesn’t look good for him”.
Completing the statement he stated, “I don’t know what the future holds for Nick, whether he’ll need an operation or not,”. He claimed he had a similar injury in the past as well, “It looks bad. It looks like a dislocation of his shoulder, which he has done before. He had it operated on and came back successfully.”
Injury crisis at Newcastle United
Newcastle United are flying high yet again for this season. Their fantastic season is also having massive speed bumps along the way. This season they have managed to have massive results across all competitions wherein they have defeated the likes of Manchester United twice, Manchester City in the Carabao Cup, French champions PSG in the UCL, title-contenders Arsenal, and smashing Chelsea 4-1 in the Premier League.
But with this success of a form they have also had a crisis along the way. 11 first-team players are out due to injuries or off-field issues.
With the likes of Callum Wilson, Sandro Tonali, Dan Burn, Sven Botman, and Sean Longstaff, a few key players of the Newcastle lineup are already out of for some time. Adding their star keeper, Nick Pope, to this list as well can prove to be quite heavy for the festive period of the fixture list incoming.
With this crisis going on at St. James’ Park, they are being forced to play some of the underage level players into their first-team squad. Being forced to play the same lineup again and again the fatigue among the players is starting to show, but Newcastle United’s spirit is high and the fans aren’t letting these players get these injury crisis thoughts even come to their heads.
