The Toon Army faithful will raise the roof off St James Park today in a match that’s seen normally as a banker for City. These two sides are the only clubs to not concede a goal as yet and if that’s to stay the same, Newcastle are going to have to be formidable defensively against the Cityzens who of late have won this fixture at a canter. This could quite easily be another one of those days, although Howe will set his stall out and try and break City down with swift, sharp counterattacks.
So pre-season went well for Newcastle (W4, L2) with all those wins coming at home, and their opening league form looks pretty tasty too, convincingly beating Forest in week 1 and not even allowing them a shoot on goal, then following it up with a 0-0 away at Brighton in which Newcastle could only muster the one chance themselves. While boasting some of the best home form in the league, they’ll have to drastically improve their away results if they aspire to finish in the top 10.
City are rockin & rollin already after their first two wins of the campaign came against West Ham 0-2 and Bournemouth 4-0 in matches they totally dominated. Already top of the league and looking like nobody will knock them off, City will look to dominate the game in their usual fashion with a high press, ultimate ball control and game management.
It doesn’t look good for Newcastle as the H2H stats show they’ve lost the last 6 straight conceding a total of 22 goals, scoring only 3, which all came in a 3-4 home defeat last year. From the previous 20 H2H fixtures City have only failed to score once in a 0-2 defeat back in 2014.
Key stats
* 35% BTTS over last 20 H2Hs
* City are 15 PL matches unbeaten
* Both sides haven’t conceded yet this season
* Newcastle 70% win rate from last 10 games
* Over 3.5 goals in 5 of last 6 H2Hs
It’ll be one-way traffic here, don’t get me wrong, Newcastle will dig in deep and frustrate City, but they ooze class, patience and ability and will come out 0-2 winners, Haaland will be man-marked and won’t be able to get much space, but all it takes is one of the full-backs getting to the by-line and squaring it for a tap in. De Bruyne will be on set piece duty and could also stun us with a piece of magic.
