Newcastle United meet Tottenham Hotspur at St James’ Park in a huge showdown for a top-four finish.
Victory will see Newcastle climb to third in the table due to Manchester United not being in league action this weekend, whilst Tottenham can stay fifth with a win but move level on 56 points with Eddie Howe’s Magpies, albeit behind on goal difference.
Team News
Newcastle have no fresh injury concerns to report after their 3-0 loss at Aston Villa last weekend.
Allan Saint-Maximin (hamstring), Ryan Fraser (personal) and Emil Krafth (knee) remain absent.
Tottenham could be without defender, Clement Lenglet who is struggling with a muscle injury.
Ben Davies (hamstring) is a doubt but Emerson Royal (knee), Ryan Sessegnon (hamstring), Rodrigo Bentancur (ACL), Yves Bissouma (ankle) and Lucas Moura (suspension) remain absent.
When is Kick-Off?
Newcastle host Tottenham at St James’ Park at 2pm BST on Sunday 23 April, live on Sky Sports in UK.
Stat Attack
- Newcastle have won just one of their last six meetings against Tottenham (W1, D2, L3).
- Tottenham have claimed 13 points from their last five visits to Newcastle (W4, D1).
- Newcastle are looking to achieve their first league double against Spurs since 2015-16 season – in which they won 2-1 away then 5-1 at home that season.
- Callum Wilson has been involved in more league goals than any other Newcastle player this season, having scored 10 goals and produced four assists in 23 appearances.
- Harry Kane has scored in each of Spurs’ last two away games (D2).
Prediction
After their lacklustre performance at Aston Villa where they were completed played off the pitch for large parts of the game, Newcastle are very lucky to come into this game not sat above Tottenham on goal difference alone.
In terms of the Magpies’ performance, I would like to see them reset defensively with a more balanced line because their defence were just too high up the pitch at Villa Park, which left them spectacularly exposed with awful marking in their backtracks.
Their attack meanwhile just lacked much intensity nor proper impact across the game, in which their end product was poor whenever they got forward to create serious chances upon Villa’s goal so a huge improvement is required.
Tottenham however can’t exactly come here as favourites given their awaful away form so far since the turn of 2023, whilst their defence was a disastrous mess in last weekend’s home loss to Bournemouth despite playing well on the attack with neat passes and decent end product if wasteful at times.
Quite frankly, the first goal does seem crucial because if Newcastle get in front then I can see them winning, whereas Tottenham are more unpredictable given their away issues so a draw would be a fair bet if Spurs get the opening goal.
I though do expect Newcastle to have enough quality in front of an electric home crowd to do the league double on Spurs, especially if they can bounce back quickly from last weekend’s mess at Villa Park.
Prediction: Newcastle 2-1 Tottenham
Result: Newcastle 6-1 Tottenham
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