Newcastle United v Manchester United - Premier League

Sunday's clash between Newcastle and Manchester United at St. James Park will be a fixture featuring two struggling teams that are looking for a way to save their sinking boat, meaning anything less than a win will be a disappointing result for both coaches.

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Newcastle wounds still fresh

Newcastle are crawling their way into round eight of EPL with a dismissal 1-2-4 record to their name, which puts them firmly into the relegation zone, where they share the bottom three spots with Watford and Aston Villa. To be fair, we don't know exactly what to think about Newcastle United, except the fact that they are clearly underperforming. Steve Bruce's side truly are an enigma to us, seeing how they have the potential to perform better, yet they fail to use that potential. That was clearly displayed last weekend, when Newcastle got completely trashed by Leicester (0:5), which set off many alarms in the club, and we can imagine Bruce will demand his team to make up for that performance. And the same can be said for Newcastle fans, who will demand to see their team to put up a show of their lives this Sunday at St. James Park, which is not a fun place to play at. That holds true for visitors as well as Newcastle, if they end up losing, seeing how their fans can quickly turn against them following a poor performance.

It's safe to say the pressure is on the Magpies to wake up and impress in round eight and while they are facing one of the big six, Manchester United are not looking particularly strong this season either.

A Hot seat underneath Ole Gunnar Solskjaer

Manchester United's injury concerns continue as they get ready for their eighth EPL fixture of the season, which could prove to be a much tougher test than the Red Devils hope for. The main reason behind that is their long list of injures, including Paul Pogba, Bailly, Mensah and Lingard.Martial, Shaw and Bissaka on the other side are all listed as questionable. Adding salt to the wound are the question surrounding Marcus Rashford’s fitness, which means a lot of responsibility falls onto the youngster Dan James.

Looking back at United's results it's hard to be too impressed with what they have shown, seeing how their Europa League fixture against AZ Alkmaar ended in a stalemate (0:0). Furthermore, Man United lost to West Ham in round six of EPL and barely edged past FC Astana (1:0) three days earlier. All in all, it's clear the team is struggling and with all the injuries, we can't expect Man United to be any more deadly this weekend.

Prediction

It's easy to see both teams are struggling to perform up to par with the expectations and we can’t pinpoint which of the two disappointed more. Newcastle suffered a painful 5:0 defeat last weekend, which obviously raised some concerns about their defence, however, we still believe Newcastle are fairly strong in the back if needed be. That is something they just might prove this weekend, as we can comfortably say their fixture against Leicester will only result in Bruce forcing a more defensive style of play to avoid another such defeat. Should Newcastle tighten up their defence here, we can't imagine Man United having an easy time scoring. Red Devils have been mediocre with their scoring so far, with four goals in the last five fixtures across all competitions, two of which came against Rochdale and one against FC Astana and all the injuries won’t help the cause here.

All in all, we trust Steve Bruce to have the needed tools to forge the perfect plan to stop his former club, and if we take everything into consideration, Newcastle could end up with at least one point here.

Prediction: Newcastle +0.50 Asian Handicap
Odds: 1.91 SBOBET

Written as a part of the EPL Loyalty program. Link.