St James’ Park awaits – Newcastle v Chelsea preview | OneFootball

Welcome to the Newcastle v Chelsea preview.

Sunday May 11th – 12.00pm.

Newcastle and Chelsea do battle at St James’ Park this Sunday in a real six-pointer as the race for qualification for the Champions League is going down to the wire.

There’s now just seven points separating second and seventh place (ahead of this weekend’s matches) and with a number of those teams still to play one another, anything can happen in the scramble for the top five.

The Toon start the weekend in fourth place and will be looking to achieve their fourth win in a row over Chelsea on home soil, having beaten them in the league in the past two seasons and knocked them out of the Carabao Cup on the way to winning the competition this term.

Chelsea on the other hand will be hoping to leapfrog Newcastle in a match that is undeniably pivotal for both sides, who share exactly the same number of points and goal difference but NUFC having scored four goals more.

Hopefully the ludicrous twelve noon kick-off will do little to dampen the atmosphere and Toon fans will enjoy the extra hours in the afternoon celebrating a fantastic victory.

Form

Newcastle have been in fine form recently and have won four, drawn one and lost just one of our past six league games. Wins have been accomplished against Leicester, Man United, Crystal Palace and Ipswich, whilst we’ve taken a point from Brighton but were defeated away to Aston Villa. We’ve scored seventeen goals in this sequence and conceded just six. The thirteen points gained have us sitting in fourth place in the league with just three matches remaining.

Chelsea are in slightly better form than the Toon having won four and drawn two of their past six league matches. They’ve beaten Liverpool, Everton, Fulham and Tottenham, whilst they’ve drawn with both Brentford and Ipswich. They’ve scored nine goals and conceded four. They’ll finish the weekend between third and sixth.

Last time out

Newcastle made the long trip down to Brighton at the weekend and gained a well-earned point through a late penalty from Alexander Isak. Brighton took the lead in a first half of few chances through former Toon player Minteh. It seemed like this would be enough to seal all three points when Newcastle had two second half penalties overturned by VAR.

Thankfully, the referee pointed to the spot for a third time that afternoon and our super Swede buried the penalty to level the scores. There was even time for Callum Wilson to force a fine save in injury time that, had it found the net, would have sent the away end into raptures. Ultimately, this was a decent point for NUFC that leaves qualification for the Champions League very much in our own hands.

Chelsea hosted newly-crowned Premier League champions Liverpool on Sunday afternoon and fully took advantage of a much-changed reds team. A 3-1 win for Chelsea saw them go level on points with NUFC. Liverpool threatened a comeback when bringing it back to 2-1 with just five minutes to play. However, an injury time penalty for Chelsea confirmed the win.

Newcastle have won their past three home matches with Chelsea in all competitions, scoring seven goals and conceding one.

The last eleven league matches between the sides at St James’ Park have seen seven Newcastle victories, one draw and just three defeats.

Isak has scored in each of his last four appearances against Chelsea.

Near the conclusion of the 97/98 season, Newcastle weren’t mathematically safe from relegation, despite having reached their first FA Cup final for twenty four years.

In fact, we would end the campaign just four points above the dreaded drop zone as Dalglish did his very best to dismantle Keegan’s entertainers.

Relegation fears were thankfully alleviated before the visit of Chelsea, who would end up on the receiving end of one of our best displays of the season. Dabizas opened the scoring and celebrated his first goal for the club by running into the fans before Rob Lee put the Toon in control with a diving header before half-time. Gary Speed then netted to make it 3-0 as the Toon threatened to run riot.

Chelsea were able to pull one back but this was a superb victory and a fully deserved three points. As it was the last home game of the season, there was a lap of honour at the final whistle and a chance to send fans off to Wembley in fine fettle. Manager Kenny Dalglish took the mic and pledged to bring the cup home! Unfortunately, things didn’t exactly work out like that, but thankfully that’s a story for another day. Final score: Newcastle 3-1 Chelsea.

Played for both

Celestine Babayaro played for Chelsea between 1997 and 2005, he scored his first goal for the blues against the Toon in a 1-1 draw at Stamford Bridge. He played over two hundred matches for Chelsea before signing for Graeme Souness’ Newcastle in Jan 2005. He scored his first and only goal for NUFC in a 3-1 against Coventry in the FA Cup.

A little known fact about Babayaro is that he played against Liverpool just a few hours after learning about the death of his brother.

At the end of the 04/05 season, champions Chelsea played their last match at St James’ Park and invited Babayaro to join them in entering the field to a guard of honour. He’d played four league games for the blues that season before his transfer to NUFC.

Damien Duff looked an absolute bargain when signing from Chelsea for five million pounds in 2006.

The Republic of Ireland International had spent three successful seasons as an attacking midfielder at Stamford Bridge.

Unfortunately, his most memorable moment in a black and white shirt was for all the wrong reasons when his own goal at Villa Park sealed our relegation from the Premier League in 2009.

His highlights were few and far between but a last minute winner at home to Spurs just before Christmas in 2008 was wildly celebrated, as was his equaliser away to West Brom on our return to Championship football.

Demba Ba signed for the Toon from West Ham in 2011 and soon became an absolutely integral part of the team that finished fifth in the league.

Hat-tricks against both Blackburn Rovers and Stoke City were memorable, but a personal highlight of mine, was a magnificent turn and half-volley in a fantastic 3-0 victory over Man Utd on a night when the Red Devils were blown away by a rampant United.

When he was joined by Papiss Demba Cisse in January, it looked like a match made in heaven. Unfortunately, the pair of them never really gelled at NUFC and Ba became increasingly frustrated at having been pushed into a wide role. He signed for Chelsea in 2013 but never really reached the heights of his first few months as a Magpie.

Managers

Eddie Howe after a 1-1 draw away to Brighton:

“It’s probably a good point for us, we came here to try and win. I thought it was a good performance from us, we were pretty good today without being at our absolute best. We were perhaps disappointed with how we created around the box – our final pass and final cross wasn’t at its highest level. But I thought we had the mainstay of possession and chances in the game. We were disappointed with how we conceded – that’s the biggest disappointment for us. I thought we did enough to definitely warrant a point, if not more. We were the team trying to win the game.”

Enzo Maresca after a 3-1 win over Liverpool:

Charity

Newcastle United fans food bank will once again be collecting opposite the Gallowgate end and gratefully receiving food, money and toiletries for those in need. Of particular interest are non-perishable food and drink items (such as noodles, pasta, rice, canned food, soup, cereal, cordial, long life milk etc) as well as toiletries such as shower gel, shampoo, toothpaste and sanitary products. Please give whatever you can, any donation is very much appreciated.

For further info and/or to donate online go HERE.

This is without doubt the biggest league game of the season so far.

Both sides know what’s at stake and the fact they are both in-form makes this one a truly mouthwatering prospect for the neutral. The very definition of a six-pointer should help boost the atmosphere despite the truly awful kick-off time.

I fancy Newcastle to turn on the style this weekend and take a huge step towards Champions League football by recording a very memorable victory. Newcastle 2-0 Chelsea.