When Jose Mourinho attempted to gloss over a shock defeat to Newcastle on Sunday with the surprisingly laid-back declaration that the ‘gods of football’ had decided the result, he may well have had a point.

The response inevitably caught many off guard, almost coming across as facetious, because Mourinho is usually the quickest manager in the Premier League to come up with an excuse or a scapegoat for any underwhelming result. But the statistics suggest divine intervention once again stood in Mourinho’s way last weekend, as his winless run at St. James’ Park in the Premier League extended to a staggering seven games.

“They fought like animals – I hope they take that as a compliment. The gods of football were on their side. It wasn’t going to happen for us today. Newcastle gave what they have and what they don’t have, that’s a beautiful thing in football.”

Indeed, Mourinho has now suffered three draws and four defeats on Tyneside, despite always visiting with a vastly stronger side on paper, and the numbers make rather staggering reading. For whatever reason, it has taken Mourinho’s side – on average – 20 shots to find the net against Newcastle, while the home side have required just 6.7 shots per goal when taking on the Special One’s teams.

In one game particularly – in December 2014 – Chelsea produced 22 efforts at goal compared to Newcastle’s six, but somehow lost 2-1 to ten men as Papiss Cisse scored twice and Steven Taylor saw red.

It’s a similar case in terms of possession and corners as well, two other traditional indicators of match dominance. Averaging 59% of the ball overall, Newcastle have never actually finished a home game against Mourinho with the majority of possession. Likewise, Mourinho’s sides have won more than double the amount of corners as Newcastle – 21 compared to 43 in total.

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We’ve seen these kinds of matches before, and particularly this season, where lesser teams win games on the counter-attack by taking their chances while producing a rear-guard performance at the other end. But for Newcastle to repeat the feat so consistently, under five different managers, is quite exceptional. Even Steve McClaren managed to claim a point from Mourinho in a 2-2 draw, during a campaign that ended with Newcastle’s relegation.

As with every set of statistics though, there are some caveats to consider. Chelsea twice visited Newcastle on the final day of the season in consecutive campaigns, May 2005 and 2006, so perhaps the Blues – in both instances, already crowned Premier League champions – and indeed the Magpies weren’t taking those games quite so seriously. In any case, Newcastle were a much stronger outfit back then compared to the starting XI Rafa Benitez fielded on Sunday.

But what is less clear is how the difference between Mourinho and Newcastle at St. James’ Park has only increased with time, despite the Magpies unquestionably becoming an inherently worse side. In fact, from November 2013 to December 2018, a period that has seen the club finish higher than 15th just once in the top flight, Newcastle have kept two clean sheets, scored seven goals and won three times in four games against Mourinho. The Portuguese’s sides, meanwhile, have managed just one draw, no clean sheets and a mere three goals, despite averaging 63% possession.

And yet, perhaps there is a more obvious and plausible explanation than merely the footballing gods using the north east to annually conspire against Mourinho. Mourinho does have a curious knack of being out-Mourinhoed on occasion, which is largely what happened on Sunday as Newcastle played on the counter and kept their shape defensively, because his teams are so functional and formulaic when going forward. Simply put, Mourinho’s teams don’t always know what to do when they’re given so much of the ball.

But whatever the ultimate cause of Mourinho’s abysmal record at St. James’ Park, it inevitably must be solved by the time next season comes around. While much of Mourinho’s mantra centres around getting the right results against key divisional rivals, consistency against the rest of the league has been an equally pivotal factor for the majority of the Big Six this season.

While Manchester City have obliterated every team in their path, home and away, United have struggled to convince and come unstuck against four relegation-threatened sides – Newcastle, Stoke, Southampton and Huddersfield.

For all the talk of footballing gods, the trend is too consistent and too longstanding to be simply a consequence of fate.