Source: Northern_Echo
Saturday Spotlight: Magpies eye clean sheet record
Newcastle do not concede a goal at Bristol City this afternoon, they will break a club record for the highest number of league clean sheets in a season.[LNB] Chief Sports Writer Scott Wilson spoke to Steve Harper, the goalkeeper charged with the task of securing the record-breaking shut-out.[LNB] FOR the majority of the last two decades, even the most talented of lawyers would have struggled to make a case for Newcastle United's defence.[LNB] From Marcelinho's mishaps to Titus Bramble's blunders, reliability was hardly the name of the game when it came to assessing the Magpies' rearguard during more than 15 years in the Premier League. Culpability was a far more suitable expression.[LNB] So even though they started the current campaign in the Championship, expectations about Newcastle's defensive performance were hardly sky high when the action began at West Brom.[LNB] Seven months on, however, history is in the making. If Chris Hughton's side record their 19th Championship shut out at Bristol City today, they will set a club record for the highest number of league clean sheets in a season.[LNB] While some will claim Newcastle should be difficult to break down given the presence of £10m Fabricio Coloccini and £6m Jose Enrique in a Championship back four, such an achievement is not to be sniffed at. The club has boasted highly-rated defenders at a similar level in the past, only for the defensive whole to be considerably less than the sum of the parts.[LNB] We will all be proud if we create a new record, said goalkeeper Steve Harper, who is the only Newcastle player to have played in every Championship match this season.[LNB] It's probably the first time since I came to Newcastle that I have heard a defence being consistently praised. I don't know if that is to do with dropping down a division or not, but this is a very tough league and you still have to defend well.[LNB] It's pleasing to have kept 18 clean sheets, and to keep a clean sheet every other game is testament to a good, solid unit, which is what we've proved ourselves to be.[LNB] One more could set a club record, but you'd like to think we'd get more than one with ten games left, especially at St James' Park.[LNB] While Hughton mixed and matched his strikers repeatedly in the first half of the season, the Newcastle boss made a point of keeping his defensive tinkering to a minimum.[LNB] Coloccini partnered Steven Taylor in 17 of the club's 24 league games prior to New Year's Day, with Enrique and Danny Simpson filling the full-back berths in the vast majority of early-season matches.[LNB] Taylor's knee injury, sustained in mid-January, forced a reshuffle, but while Mike Williamson and Fitz Hall have shared responsibilities for most of the last two months, Hughton's defensive selections have remained reassuringly consistent.[LNB] Discovering whether the likes of Taylor, Coloccini, Williamson, Enrique and Simpson can cut it in the Premier League will be one of the most interesting aspects of monitoring Newcastle's progress next season, provided there are no unforeseen hiccups in the final ten matches of the current campaign.[LNB] I know it sounds boring to say we score goals as a team and defend as a team, but we do, said Harper. Goalkeepers tend to get a lot of credit when they keep a clean sheet.[LNB] But you look at Steven Taylor earlier this season and he was very impressive.[LNB] Coloccini and Enrique have been outstanding, and the likes of (Patrick) van Aanholt, Fitz Hall and Danny Simpson have all done well. And that's before we get to the midfield lads.[LNB] We are solid as a team.[LNB] When we lose the ball we get behind it and that makes us hard to score against.[LNB] It would be unfair if I was to take all the credit for the clean sheets. If my name goes into the record books, great, but I don't want it to go unrecognised as to what a fantastic team effort it's been in the 36 games so far.[LNB] Nevertheless, if Newcastle record another shut out, it will be Harper's name that enters the annals of history.[LNB] He will replace the player who played the majority of matches when Newcastle were last promoted from English football's second tier, Czech favourite Pavel Srnicek.[LNB] Srnicek was responsible for 13 of the Magpies' 18 clean sheets during the 1992-93 season (Irishman Tommy Wright was in goal for the other five) and quickly established himself as a fans' favourite as Kevin Keegan's side romped to the Division One title.[LNB] The popular Czech, who was signed from Banik Ostrava in 1991, entered Newcastle folklore when he wore a Tshirt bearing the slogan Pavel is a Geordie as he helped parade the Division One trophy around St James' Park following a 7-1 victory over Leicester on the final day of the season.[LNB] Similar T-shirts sprang up all around the city, and after a chance meeting earlier this month, Harper could yet find himself wearing one if Newcastle are promoted by the time they entertain Ipswich Town in their final home game of the campaign on April 24.[LNB] I couldn't think of anyone better than Pav to knock off the record, because he was fantastic to me when I was a young kid here, said the Easington-born shot-stopper.[LNB] He was here last week because we had a Slovakian trialist at the club.[LNB] Pav came in with him, and I joked that if we are promoted by the Ipswich game, I'll wear a Pavel is a Geordie' T-shirt.[LNB] His face lit up and he said he would come back to see it, so I think he might be putting me under pressure to do that.[LNB] I think the world of Pav, so it would be great if we broke his record.[LNB] It would not, however, be the be all and end all. Records are all well and good, but with ten games to play, Harper would willingly swap a place in the record books for a place in the Premier League.[LNB] At the start of the year, the aim was to get promoted, and I'm sure all the Geordie fans would snap your hands off for that, he said. It's still the aim.[LNB] If we wrap it up, then we can start to set ourselves another target. But the overriding aim is to get promoted and there is work still to do.[LNB]
