Date: Saturday 18th January 2020
Venue: St James Park
Kick-off: 17:30 GMT
After finally getting a relatively
straightforward win at home last time out against Burnley, today’s late game
sees us back on our travels, as we face Newcastle.
Steve Bruce has had to deal with a
string of injuries, (the number changes from day to day, depending on which
source you get it from), but they’re still in a slightly better position than
they were this time last year, so it’s not all bad.
Similar to us I suppose, we had to
manage with our own share of injury woes from the start of the season, on top
of a transfer ban, and we must be doing so well the club have decided they don’t
need a transfer window after all. Ok, I’m kidding, whilst the football is
definitely easier to watch, we’re slightly worse off than this time last season
– but there’s still clearly no panic buying despite our ups and downs this
campaign.
We seem to be favourites for this
one, which seems reasonable enough from Newcastle’s form but I agree with
Frank, we’d be mad to write them off. They’ll be looking to Joelinton to upset
us but I’d be more inclined to think if Andy Carroll makes even part of this
game, the fact he’s gone 28 Premier League appearances without a goal would almost
guarantee he’d get on the score sheet today.
MANAGER’S VIEWS
Going into today’s game, Newcastle manager
Steve Bruce says “We’ve been down to
the bare bones. We’ve had something like 12, 13 players injured all at once,
out of a squad of 23 with three goalkeepers. That tells you that you’re in a
little bit of trouble.”
Chelsea manager Frank
Lampard meanwhile, says “Every
game in the Premier League remains vital and this is the same as all the others.
Even though we have good away form in general, every game brings new
challenges. Going to Newcastle, I know it as a player and I know it now. The
emotion of the crowd, they are a very organised team with the manager that they
have. Also the threats they have, they have got some good results this season.
We will be taking nothing lightly or expecting anything because of our away
record. We have to take this game head on, as we have to do in these games
coming up now because it is massively important we keep or focus game in game
out. We certainly don’t underestimate Newcastle.”
SQUAD NEWS
For Newcastle, Paul Dummett and Dwight
Gayle are nursing hamstring injuries and Andy Carroll is a doubt, but Jonjo
Shelvey and Fabian Schar are back in training and Allan Saint-Maximin returns.
For Chelsea, Ruben Loftus-Cheek
(Achilles), van Ginkel (ACL), Christian Pulisic (adductor) are out and N’Golo
Kante (hamstring) continues to be assessed. Marcos Alonso could be in
contention.
TEAMS
NEWCASTLE (Possible line-up): Dubravka;
Hayden, Fernandez, Lascelles, Lejeune, Willems; Ritchie, Shelvey, S.Longstaff,
Almiron; Joelinton
CHELSEA (Possible line-up): Kepa; James, Rudiger,
Zouma, Azpilicueta; Barkley, Jorginho, Kovacic; Willian, Abraham, Hudson-Odoi
LAST SEASON
Newcastle 1-2 Chelsea (26th August 2018)
CURRENT FORM (PL)
NEWCASTLE: LWLLLD
CHELSEA: LWLWDW
OTHER STUFF
- Newcastle have
taken just four points from their last eight Premier League games against
Chelsea, losing the last three.
- Chelsea’s 25
victories in this Premier League fixture is bettered only by 29 wins against
Tottenham.
- Newcastle have won
just once in six league matches.
- Newcastle could
lose three successive Premier League games at St James’ Park for the first time
since October 2018.
- Newcastle’s average
ball possession of 34% is the lowest in the Premier League.
- Chelsea have taken
22 points away from home in the Premier League, compared to 17 points at
Stamford Bridge.
- Twenty five of Chelsea’s
39 league goals have come on the road.
- Chelsea have kept
just one away clean sheet, conceding 19 goals in their 11 games.
PREDICTION
BBC Sport: Newcastle 1-2 Chelsea
Sky Sports: Newcastle 1-3 Chelsea
Sportsmole: Newcastle 2-2 Chelsea