With a World Cup on the horizon, Newcastle United’s new signing Nick Pope will be desperate to impress
Nick Pope is a quality signing for Newcastle United. An England international who has performed exceptionally in the Premier League in recent years. He’d have been a good signing even at a higher cost, but the club’s ability to take advantage of Burnley’s relegation and snap up the 30-year-old for just £10m marks an exceptional capture.
Officially speaking, Pope is arriving with no guarantees of the No. 1 jersey at Newcastle and will instead provide firm competition for the current incumbent Martin Dubravka.
Read between the lines though, and Pope seems exactly like an Eddie Howe type of goalkeeper. An assured shot-stopper who can play with the ball at his feet, it is not likely to take Pope long before he is pushing Dubravka out of his position – likely to be further aided by some injury issues which blighted Dubravka last season.
There is an added need for Pope to quickly usurp Dubravka for the Newcastle goalkeeping position too, though: Qatar 2022.
Newcastle’s new signing will want to ensure he is playing regularly to be in with a chance – a very strong one – of being included in Gareth Southgate’s World Cup squad. It is highly likely that Everton’s Jordan Pickford will continue to be England’s No. 1 for the tournament, but the remaining two spots are still very much on offer for a small, highly competitive pool of English goalkeepers.
Pope is in this mix and having won eight senior caps already since his debut in 2018, he has valuable experience which some of the others competing do not.
Back at club level, Dubravka does not have the same drive to impress ahead of the November-December break. Some tough late results in qualification saw Slovakia miss out on qualification for the World Cup, meaning that while both goalkeepers are by all accounts consummate professionals, the additional drive lies squarely with Pope.
Newcastle is likely to be the beneficiary of that significantly heightened competition behind the scenes too, with both goalkeepers pushing each other further and further – the whole justification for bringing Pope into the mix.
At 30 years old, Pope likely still has a number of years ahead of him at the top level too (with his most recent form for Burnley being comfortable in the top few performers in the league), meaning that Eddie Howe and his team could have secured stability in the goalkeeping position already – and once again, for a fee of just £10m!