Newcastle United will host Burnley tomorrow and they will hope to claim their second double in three days.
With their 2-0 victory over Huddersfield Town on Saturday, Newcastle United have won three straight matches at St. James’ Park and they will look to extend that streak to four against Burnley. Newcastle will be high on confidence after earning 10 points from their last five matches, but tomorrow’s opponents have not lost a match since December 26th, and their upset victory over Tottenham over the weekend should give them even more confidence.
Tomorrow’s clash between 14th and 15th place will be interesting and it should be a close affair. Newcastle have only scored 24 goals this season, but Burnley have conceded an alarming 48 goals. That being said, one goal could very well be the deciding factor tomorrow.
What to Expect
Seeing that both teams have earned a string of positive results, it would not be a surprise if the opening 20 minutes of action saw both teams testing the waters to understand the opposing game plans. The last time these two teams met, Newcastle managed to score two early goals through Federico Fernandez and Ciaran Clark to secure three points, but tomorrow should be different.
In the previous meeting, Burnley was seriously threatened by relegation as they found themselves in the bottom three, but now they are a side that just defeated Tottenham and drew with Manchester United at Old Trafford. Newcastle’s odds of winning will increase significantly if they can score in the first half hour.
The fact that the Magpies took 29 shots and completed 547 passes against Huddersfield Town should motivate Rafa Benitez’s side to get forward and pick up where they left off. Miguel Almiron played lights out football in his home debut on Saturday and the fact that Burnley’s defense concedes many goals is a major positive for this new-look Newcastle side.
The trio of Almiron-Rondon-Perez looked great as all three players took multiple shots and did their best to set one another up for a good look at goal. This type of chemistry on offense has been lacking all season, but it is here now and my prediction is that Burnely will not have a solution for containing these three up top.