St James' Park hosts Newcastle United v Chelsea in the Premier League on Saturday at 3pm.
Premier League football is back after two of the worst England performances I've never bothered to watch in my life ( I saw enough to pass judgement).
Chelsea come to town tomorrow in their sparkly ambulance team bus as they bring with them a squad almost as injury-hit as ours.
Both sides have been handed some good news ahead of the game with Christopher Nkunku set to finally make his Chelsea bow, while Newcastle have Miguel Almiron back in training and reports are suggesting that Alexander Isak will return, although he was suspiciously absent from yesterday's training photos.
Given all the injuries to both sides and the fact that, despite Mauricio Pochettino starting to get something out of Chelsea again, their performances are literally unpredictable, it's going to be a tough one to call.
Thankfully, we leave that kind of thing to the professionals because we're all far too superstitious to predict scores ourselves.
Chris Sutton has provided his prediction for the game on the BBC Sport website, and as we said, it's a tough one to call.
“Newcastle looked really jaded in their defeat by Bournemouth before the international break. They have got some injured players back in contention, including Alexander Isak, but the question is how fit are they, and how much has changed in two weeks?
“It's a similar story with Chelsea, who could hand Christopher Nkunku his debut but, if that happens, it will probably be off the bench. They are improving, yes, but they are still so erratic, which makes this game almost impossible to call.
“There are signs they have turned a corner and they were so impressive at times against Manchester City but you can't rely on them to play well again here.
“To be honest, I feel like giving up when it comes to making predictions about Chelsea games anyway - I get their scores wrong every week, so I am ready to be proved wrong again here.
“Sutton's prediction: 1-1”
Sutton is agreeing with Paul Merson with a-1 draw, and like we said on that one, we'd take it right now, all things considered.
PL | GD | PTS | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
1 |
Liverpool
|
6 | 10 | 15 |
2 |
Manchester City
|
6 | 8 | 14 |
3 |
Arsenal
|
6 | 7 | 14 |
4 |
Chelsea
|
6 | 8 | 13 |
5 |
Aston Villa
|
6 | 3 | 13 |
6 |
Fulham
|
6 | 3 | 11 |
7 |
Newcastle United
|
6 | 1 | 11 |
8 |
Tottenham Hotspur
|
6 | 7 | 10 |
9 |
Brighton
|
6 | 2 | 9 |
10 |
Nottingham Forest
|
6 | 1 | 9 |
11 |
Bournemouth
|
6 | -1 | 8 |
12 |
Brentford
|
6 | -2 | 7 |
13 |
Manchester United
|
6 | -3 | 7 |
14 |
West Ham United
|
6 | -4 | 5 |
15 |
Ipswich
|
6 | -5 | 4 |
16 |
Everton
|
6 | -8 | 4 |
17 |
Leicester
|
6 | -4 | 3 |
18 |
Crystal Palace
|
6 | -4 | 3 |
19 |
Southampton
|
6 | -9 | 1 |
20 |
Wolves
|
6 | -10 | 1 |