The 146th Tyne-Wear derby between Newcastle United and Sunderland takes place at St James’ Park on Sunday and there will be plenty of passion on show.
Newcastle have plenty of attacking players to hurt the Black Cats, but if the stats are anything to go by then there’s one man, Sebastian Larsson, who Davide Santon and the rest of the Magpies will have to prevent from swinging the crosses in…
- Newcastle United let a two goal lead slip against Wolves in their last Premier League fixture.
- Goals from Jonas Gutierrez and Papiss Cisse put Newcastle ahead before Wolves fought back.
- Gurierrez has covered more ground than any other Newcastle player this season with 153.1 miles, the 5th highest overall in the EA SPORTS Player Performance Index.
- Gutierrez’s goal was just his second in the Barclays Premier League this season, despite having had 34 shots at goal with an impressive 62% on target.
- As a team, Newcastle have the third highest cumulative total for distance covered with 1706 miles, behind only Norwich and Chelsea.
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- Yohan Cabaye returned for Newcastle to start a game for the first time since the game against Liverpool at the end of December, and continued where he had left off covering more ground than any of his team mates with 5.71 miles.
- Sunderland will be hoping to bounce back from a 4-0 defeat at West Brom against bitter rivals Newcastle United this weekend.
- Craig Gardner covered the most ground for Sunderland in that game with 6.03 miles.
- Sunderland striker Frazier Campbell was a surprise call up for the England team this week.
- Campbell has played just 211 minutes in the Barclays Premier League this season, covering 13.05 miles and scoring once from four shots on target and also contributing an assist.
- Sunderland midfielder Sebastian Larsson has been one of the stars of the Black Cats season so far, and has delivered 89 crosses, behind only Nani in the EA SPORTS Player Performance Index.
Data courtesy of the EA SPORTS Player Performance Index, the official player rating index of the Barclays Premier League.
