Saturday at 3pm sees Newcastle take on Brighton and Hove Albion at the Amex Arena down in sunny Brighton.
Both teams got off to a winning start on the opening game of the season: Newcastle with a 2-0 home win against Nottingham Forest and Brighton beating Manchester United 2-1 at Old Trafford, so you’d imagine both teams will be full of confidence and looking to come away with three points.
Brighton hasn’t been a happy hunting ground for Newcastle, who are yet to win a top-flight match at the Amex Stadium in five attempts. That being said, this is a completely new-look Newcastle side under the stewardship of Eddie Howe, who was in the stands the last time these clubs met at this ground with the fixture coming just before his announcement as Newcastle’s new Head Coach.
Brighton Prediction
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Draw
Also in attendance at that game, seen shaking hands with Eddie Howe as he found his seat, was Dan Ashworth. The man who left Brighton to join the new regime at St James’ Park.
The fixture will also have extra significance for one Dan Burn who joined his boyhood club, Newcastle in January from Brighton. It’s likely Burn will once again start ahead of Sven Botman as Howe prefers to bed his new signings in before handing them a starting role when they’re not familiar with the league, much like he did with Bruno Guimaraes.
Speaking of the Brazilian, Guimaraes is likely to be Newcastle’s key man once again, pulling the strings and dictating the play from the middle of the park. It’s going to be a tougher game than last week with Brighton much more established in the league as well as this being an away fixture, so we may see the Magpies playing a tad more cautiously this weekend as hinted at by Callum Wilson.
It’s definitely going to be a tough match. My heart says 1-2 but my head is saying 1-1.
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