‘I can only see one thing happening with Newcastle United’ Joe Cole

Joe Cole has been talking about Newcastle United.

The former Liverpool and England winger with a couple of big NUFC predictions.

Joe Cole speaking ahead of this afternoon’s match at St James’ Park.

Newcastle United facing Aston Villa in a 2pm kick-off.

Eddie Howe’s side having the possibility of ending the weekend in the Premier League top four, if getting the win at St James’ Park and other results going their way as well.

Some nice results on Saturday, especially Liverpool losing deep in added time at Bournemouth, Arne Slot under extreme pressure now with just four points from the last five Premier League games.

Back to Newcastle United now though and Joe Cole says that he can only see one possible outcome at St James’ Park: “This is a tricky one to figure out and I’m going to go with the side having an extra day’s rest. Aston Villa were in Turkey on Thursday and Newcastle had a great win at home against PSV. The prices are quite good because of Villa’s form but I can only see a Newcastle win.”

Aston Villa put a great run of form together to get them into a position where there was even talk of challenging for the title. However, when on a run of winning 12 of 13 Premier League matches, it was also a stand out that in 10 of the 12 victories it was only a one goal winning margin. One of those I think where luck, decisions, fine margins going Villa’s way, on top of playing to a good, sometimes very good, standard.

Playing in the Europa League has meant Aston Villa having a similar workload to Newcastle United, though at a lower level in Europe. That schedule looking to have caught up with them a bit, along with now key injuries as well, impacting recent PL form. Villa did win at home against relegation fighting Forest but the other three of their last four PL matches, have seen Villa hammered 4-1 by Arsenal, a goalless draw at struggling Palace, then lose 1-0 at home to Everton in their most recent PL game.

Playing in the Europa League also means regularly doing Thursday-Sunday matches and as Joe Cole points out, this has given Newcastle United a likely advantage. One day more to rest and prepare, plus United at home on Wednesday night, whilst Villa in Turkey on Thursday night.

As well as predicting a Newcastle win today, Joe Cole has also picked out a player to impact today’s match: “Anthony Gordon has had another good week so far with his display in the Champions League. I fancy him to back that up so it’s Gordon to score or assist as well.”

Anthony Gordon scored against PSV and in the last Newcastle win before that, scored and got an assist in the FA Cup victory over Bournemouth when coming off the bench.

In all competitions, Anthony Gordon trails Harvey Barnes by only one, when it comes to direct goal involvements.

These are the current top six NUFC players, Harvey Barnes with 12 goals and two assists, Anthony Gordon with nine goals and four assists.

14 Harvey Barnes (12G and 2A)
13 Anthony Gordon (9G and 4A)
13 Bruno Guimaraes (8G and 5A)
12 Nick Woltemade (9G and 3A)
6 Joelinton (5G and 1A)
6 Lewis Miley (3G and 3A)

Last season at St James’ Park on Boxing Day, Anthony Gordon scored a brilliant goal inside two minutes to set Newcastle United on their way to a dominant 3-0 Premier League victory. A repeat of that would do nicely.