Aston Villa face Newcastle United in a massive Premier League showdown in the race for European qualification.
Victory will see Newcastle stay third and move to within two points of second-placed Arsenal, whilst Villa can go fifth if Manchester City lose at Everton although a draw would lift them above Chelsea into sixth.
Team News
Villa have no fresh injury concerns to report following their 3-2 Champions League win at home against PSG in midweek, although Unai Emery’s Villains were ultimately eliminated on aggregate.
Newcastle have no fresh injury concerns to report following their 5-0 victory at home to Crystal Palace in midweek.
Sven Botman, Jamaal Lascelles (both knee) and Lewis Hall (foot) remain absent.
When is Kick-Off?
Villa host Newcastle at Villa Park on Saturday 19 April at 5:30pm BST, live on Sky Sports in the UK.
Stat Attack
- Villa have won one of their last six meetings against Newcastle (W1, L5).
- Newcastle have won one of their last five top-flight visits to Villa (W1, L4).
- Alexander Isak has scored three goals in two of Newcastle’s last three meetings against Villa, albeit at home only.
- Villa’s Donyell Malen is looking to score in four consecutive domestic league matches for the first time since November – December 2017 for Jong PSV in Netherlands’ Eerste Divisie.
- Coming into this matchweek, no English player has produced more assists in the top-flight this season than Newcastle’s Jacob Murphy who has created 11 assists in 29 appearances.
Prediction
Despite suffering a tough Champions League exit where the damage was done away in the first leg, Villa can be proud of how they fought back to beat PSG at home but they need to take the confidence and lessons quickly because they’re just two points off another top-five finish and can’t afford to slip up.
Emery’s Villains have also won their last four domestic league games even though they did have to grind out a clinical win at Southampton through clever substitutions, which might also need to be the case here if they’re to make it five top-flight victories on the bounce.
Newcastle meanwhile just seem to be on a roll at the moment with the whole team oozing confidence and momentum in how they play, especially in the manner of how they clinically yet ruthlessly dispatched Palace in an otherwise pretty evenly-matched battle.
Both teams therefore won’t want to see their winning league form grind to a halt but if Villa can find a way to restrict Isak and Murphy, I reckon that this could be a pretty high-scoring draw.
Prediction: Aston Villa 2-2 Newcastle
