Newcastle United are back 'dahhn saahrf' on Saturday after a tough night in the Capital on Tuesday.
The Magpies crashed out of the Carabao Cup at Stamford Bridge on Tuesday night and now find themselves heading to Kenilworth Road for a clash with the Premier League newbies Luton Town.
It's a game that promises to be quite emotional for the home side after their game with Bournemouth was abandoned last week following their captain, Tom Lockyer suffering cardiac arrest during the game. Thankfully Lockyer is recovering well, but it was such a shock to see it happen so soon after a similar thing happened in May in the play-off final.
Luton's home form matches Newcastle's away form so this one has draw written all over it, but with all due respect to Luton you'd have to say there's a gulf in class between the two sides which skews in Newcastle's favour.
Thankfully it's not down to us to predict the score, we'll leave that to Chris Sutton who has made his prediction for the BBC.
"First and foremost, it's a relief that Luton captain Tom Lockyer is in a stable condition after his collapse during the Bournemouth game.
"Luton have been really competitive at Kenilworth Road but they have still only won one out of eight league matches there this season, and picked up five points in total.
"Mind you, Newcastle's away form is hardly convincing either - it is actually identical to Luton's home record in terms of wins and points, so there is plenty of room for improvement.
"Eddie Howe's side have got to address that if they want to challenge for the top four - and I think they will address it here, although it is going to be close.
"Sutton's prediction: 1-2"
After our current bad luck we'd happily take scraping a win. Three points is what matters again, not the performance, which was the message against Fulham and that one turned out well.
When the fixtures were released we all will have looked at this one a definite three points and probably a goal-fest, but nobody could have predicted the injuries we've had, and continue to have, as well as the shocking form away from home. Add to that the fact the Luton players will want to do something for Tom Lockyer, this could be a tricky one.
Kick-off for this one is a good old-fashioned 3pm on Saturday deal again which of course means there's no live TV coverage in the UK.
PL | GD | PTS | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
1 |
Liverpool
|
13 | 18 | 34 |
2 |
Arsenal
|
13 | 12 | 25 |
3 |
Chelsea
|
13 | 12 | 25 |
4 |
Brighton
|
13 | 5 | 23 |
5 |
Manchester City
|
13 | 3 | 23 |
6 |
Nottingham Forest
|
13 | 3 | 22 |
7 |
Tottenham Hotspur
|
13 | 14 | 20 |
8 |
Brentford
|
13 | 3 | 20 |
9 |
Manchester United
|
13 | 4 | 19 |
10 |
Fulham
|
13 | 0 | 19 |
11 |
Newcastle United
|
13 | 0 | 19 |
12 |
Aston Villa
|
13 | -3 | 19 |
13 |
Bournemouth
|
13 | 1 | 18 |
14 |
West Ham United
|
13 | -7 | 15 |
15 |
Everton
|
13 | -11 | 11 |
16 |
Leicester
|
13 | -11 | 10 |
17 |
Crystal Palace
|
13 | -7 | 9 |
18 |
Wolves
|
13 | -10 | 9 |
19 |
Ipswich
|
13 | -11 | 9 |
20 |
Southampton
|
13 | -15 | 5 |