Newcastle United: Chris Wood slammed amid ‘poor’ performance in goalless draw

by Hal Fish

3 minute read 1/1/2023 | 07:30pm

Daily Mail journalist Craig Hope has slammed Newcastle United striker Chris Wood for his ‘poor’ display in the club’s most recent outing.

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In the latest round of Premier League matches, Eddie Howe and his club played host to Jesse Marsch’s Leeds United on a wet and windy afternoon at St James’ Park.

In the end, however, neither team could get the breakthrough and so each side had to settle for just a point in the goalless draw. With that being the case, it seems as though the Newcastle forwards were probably not at their best on the day.

In the eyes of Hope, Wood was particularly disappointing. On YouTube, he said (2:22): “Chris Wood got a lot of praise down at Leicester on Boxing Day, and rightly so.

“I thought he was poor here today for Newcastle.”

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Wood is no Wilson

Of course, Callum Wilson would usually be the first pick up to for Howe in his team – and has six league goals to his name this term – but the England striker has been struggling for fitness and only returned to the bench for this game after missing the prior match against Leicester City.

Still, as mentioned by Hope, Wood was pretty good against the Foxes as he netted from the penalty spot to open the scoring in the 3-0 win on the road.

However, the Kiwi was far from his best against Leeds. As per SofaScore, he finished the game with a lowly 6.1 match rating and missed two big chances, completed just 70 per cent of his attempted passes, was caught offside twice and lost the ball five times before being hooked after 64 minutes. To put his influence into perspective, he achieved nine less touches than Nick Pope.

Seeing as Wilson was the man who came on for Wood, that could suggest the England international will now be back in the starting team next time out when the Magpies face Arsenal.

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