Newcastle United Match Preview

The away fixture against Chelsea at the start of February was preceded by the trip to Aston Villa and now, the fixture list has reversed. After the home victory against newly-promoted Leicester City twelve days ago, West Ham United are back in front of their own fans tonight, as Newcastle United are the visitors to Stratford.

I’m sure the fans will agree that it was a much easier schedule to handle in February. Well, March will be even easier with only a trip to Everton to come after this fixture.

The Hammers go into this game off the back of consecutive wins, having also taken three points from The Emirates Stadium back on February 22.

Eddie Howe’s Magpies will do all they can to try and prevent their hosts from doing the double over them, as former Head-Coach Julen Lopetegui helped his side engineer a 2-0 victory in the reverse fixture back on November 25. Having said that though, the Irons will be hoping that their opponents have their minds focused on next Sunday’s Carabao Cup final against Liverpool at Wembley.

West Ham had climbed up to fifteenth place in the Premier League table after the comfortable victory over Ruud van Nistelrooy’s Foxes last time out but start this game back in sixteenth. Graham Potter will want to see their recent good form continue as he tries to help them into a higher position.

The hosts will be well rested ahead of this encounter. That is in stark contrast to Howe’s men who were knocked out of the Emirates FA Cup eight days ago, after losing 2-1 at home to fellow Premier League side Brighton and Hove Albion in extra-time.

Potter named an unchanged side for the game against the Foxes however, he stated in his pre-match news conference on Friday that both Vladimír Coufal and Lucas Paquetá are back in training and could be included in the matchday squad if they are deemed fit enough. Otherwise Konstantinos Mavropanos, Emerson Palmieri and Carlos Soler could be restored to the starting line-up. Evan Ferguson is still looking for a first start since moving to the club on February 3.

The match is an 8pm kick-off and live coverage will be screened by Sky Sports from 6:30pm. The referee is Michael Salisbury.