Newcastle United and Chelsea kick off round 17 of the 2025-26 Premier League season with a clash at St James’ Park on Saturday afternoon.
Both teams enjoyed EFL Cup success in midweek as the hosts saw off Fulham to book a place in the last four, while their visitors edged out Cardiff.
Off the back of a disappointing 1-0 defeat to rivals Sunderland in the Tyne–Wear derby, Newcastle got back to winning ways in Wednesday’s cup clash against Fulham.
With extra time looming, Lewis Miley’s grabbed the winner in second-half stoppage time after Sasa Lukic had cancelled out Yoane Wissa’s opener.
Consequently, the Magpies’ unbeaten home run now stands at nine matches, eight of which have ended in victory since September’s 2-1 defeat to Arsenal.
Going up against an opposing outfit currently eight places and six points above them in the Premier League table, Newcastle will be bracing themselves up for a tough assignment this weekend.
However, Saturday’s hosts have beaten the visitors in four straight home matches across all competitions by a combined score of 9-1.
They should be confident of securing maximum points from their final home assignment of 2025.
For Chelsea, trips to Tyneside of late have proven to be an unhappy experience.
Nonetheless, consecutive wins over Everton and Cardiff since a four-game winless run should hand the Blues some optimism ahead of their upcoming visit to the North East.
Having remained level at 1-1 with Cardiff last time out heading into the final eight minutes, Enzo Maresca’s men ran the risk of an additional half hour of action before Pedro Neto and Alejandro Garnacho struck to get the job done.
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That was Chelsea’s first win in four away outings, but the Blues have the second-best record of any Premier League team on the road with 14 points, only behind Crystal Palace’s tally of 16.
Opening the scoring in eight of their last 10 matches respectively, both Chelsea and Newcastle have developed a knack for starting games as they mean to go on and breaking the deadlock will be a huge priority for the teams this weekend.