A groin injury to Pope gave Aaron Ramsdale<\/a> the chance he was waiting for, and I do not think it is harsh to say he is not taking it in the slightest.<\/p>\n The 27-year-old exudes absolutely no confidence in between the sticks, putting in another fundamentally poor performance in Newcastle United\u2019s 2-2 draw with Chelsea<\/a>.<\/p>\n Why, oh why, do Newcastle keep dropping points?! \ud83d\udc40 <\/p>\n \ud83d\udc47 Join the debate; share your insight. Use the comment button on the bottom left to have your say <\/p>\n Aaron Ramsdale lets Newcastle United down again<\/p>\n While he did not make horrendous errors, the finger can be pointed at Ramsdale for both of Chelsea\u2019s goals on Saturday.<\/p>\n Reece James\u2019 free-kick was exceptional, but Ramsdale\u2019s positioning was awful. The set piece was central and from so far out, yet the former Arsenal stopper opted to plant himself to the left. There was a huge amount of space for James to hit, which he did exquisitely. <\/p>\n The plaudits should not be taken away from James, but Ramsdale certainly did not do enough to prevent that game-changing goal.<\/p>\n Then for the equaliser, Ramsdale was unconvincing again. Of course, Joao Pedro was always likely to score as he raced through on goal for a one-on-one, but Ramsdale barely makes himself big. That is something that Pope does brilliantly, as he continues to be a huge miss.<\/p>\n Ramsdale is not making glaring errors, but he is proving exactly why Pope is the better goalkeeper. Sure, Ramsdale is better with his feet, but when it comes to the basics of goalkeeping then it is not even a competition between the Newcastle United<\/a> duo.<\/p>\n Who was Newcastle United\u2019s MOTM against Chelsea?! <\/p>\n Strange to say there are a few choices given the result!<\/p>\n \ud83d\udc47 Join the debate; share your insight. Use the comment button on the bottom left to have your say <\/p>\n Newcastle United must pick Nick Pope again as soon as he is available<\/p>\n The only way that Newcastle United can fix this problem is by restoring Pope to the starting XI. However, that is currently not possible.<\/p>\n Eddie Howe<\/a> recently said that Pope was close to returning<\/a>, with the 33-year-old having an outside chance of featuring in the Tyne-Wear derby against Sunderland. Two more games have passed since then and there is still no sign of him.<\/p>\n Hopefully Pope is available for the Magpies\u2019 Boxing Day game against Manchester United, and if he is then he has to start.<\/p>\n Ramsdale\u2019s quality with his feet simply is not enough to pick him ahead of Pope.<\/p>\n Join Our Newsletter <\/p>\n Receive a digest of our best Newcastle content each week direct to your mailbox<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Long before this run in the Newcastle United starting XI, there was a clamour from some fans for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":328051,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[106427,218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-328050","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-aaron-ramsdale","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom","13":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328050\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/328051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/GBB-14-819x1024.jpg\")
Credit: Getty Images\/George Wood <\/p>\n![\"Aaron](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/GettyImages-2252843352-1024x683.jpg\")
Photo by George Wood\/Getty Images<\/p>\n![\"Anthony](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/GettyImages-2252838223-1024x745.jpg\")
Photo by George Wood\/Getty Images <\/p>\n