We look ahead to Monday’s Premier League game at St. James’ Park with our Newcastle vs Liverpool prediction and preview. Can the defending champions triumph in a hostile atmosphere?
Newcastle vs Liverpool Stats: The Key Insights
Liverpool are the pre-match favourites, with a 44.1% chance of victory according to the Opta supercomputer.
The Reds are unbeaten in the previous 17 league meetings between these two teams, though Newcastle did defeat them in the EFL Cup final last season.
Mohamed Salah has 10 goals and eight assists in the Premier League against the Magpies.
Has a match ever been so overshadowed by a player who is certain to take no part in it? The Alexander Isak saga has been the transfer story of the summer, with Liverpool hoping to prise the Swedish striker away from Newcastle for a likely British record fee.
With Isak unwilling to play for the Magpies again (as things stand), the atmosphere at St. James’ Park on Monday night will be electric and emotionally charged. Liverpool’s players will be stepping into a lion’s den, even more so than usual.
However, it has actually been quite a profitable ground for the Reds in recent times. The visitors are unbeaten at Newcastle since 2015, collecting five wins and three draws from their subsequent eight trips to this corner of the north east.
Joe Gomez was a Liverpool player when they last lost there, but did not play as he was injured. The England international recently missed three days of training having only just returned from an Achilles injury, so could be a doubt for this match too.
That could be a problem for Arne Slot, who has lost Jeremie Frimpong to a hamstring issue until at least the middle of September, while Conor Bradley has only just returned to training. Liverpool don’t have many injuries, but they are all affecting potential right-back options. Slot can at least gratefully welcome Ryan Gravenberch back from suspension.
Isak aside, Eddie Howe is only missing Joe Willock from his squad. The greater issue for the Newcastle boss is how his side will score against the defending champions when their top striker is not involved.
The Magpies haven’t scored in any of their last four Premier League matches without Isak, and squandered 47 shots collectively worth 5.57 expected goals along the way.
Anthony Gordon played up front in the goalless draw at Villa Park last weekend. He had seven shots, both the most he’s ever had in a Premier League game and more than any other player in the division managed on Matchday 1.
Anthony Gordon shot map v Aston Villa
Liverpool had no attacking concerns in their season-opening 4-2 victory against Bournemouth. Four forwards scored for the Reds, with Hugo Ekitiké, Cody Gakpo, Federico Chiesa and Mohamed Salah all getting off the mark for 2025-26.
The latter is inevitably the player Newcastle fans should fear most. Salah has a phenomenal record both against them, and any other team managed by Howe.
The Egyptian King has been directly involved in 18 Premier League goals against the Magpies, registering at least one assist in each of his last six appearances against them. He is the only player to ever achieve that feat against a club in the competition’s history.
Not that Salah needs any more records given his tally of them, but here’s another: he has the most goals and assists by a player against sides managed by a specific manager in the Premier League. Liverpool’s number 11 has made an incredible 21 goal contributions (with 13 goals and eight assists) in just 14 matches against Bournemouth and Newcastle with Howe in charge.
It seems inevitable that Liverpool will score at least once on Monday night to equal their longest run of consecutive top-flight games scored in (netting in 36 straight between March 2019 and February 2020). They have scored 90 goals in 39 league games under Slot, giving them an average of 2.3 per match, which is the best ratio by any Reds manager in the top-flight.
The issue for Liverpool is at the other end of the pitch. They conceded two Opta-defined fast break goals against Bournemouth to match the total they allowed in their 38 Premier League matches last season. The return of Gravenberch should help, but the openness of the new-look Liverpool undoubtedly offers hope to Newcastle.
But with no goals in their last three league games and no Isak, can they take advantage? The Magpies haven’t gone four without a goal since February 2020, for one thing. Even if that’s only a statistical omen to suggest they won’t draw a blank here, their players can’t keep missing chances forever.
And they will have rarely received vociferous backing to the decibel level they will when Isak’s admirers are in town.
Newcastle vs Liverpool Head-to-Head
Newcastle won the Carabao Cup final against Liverpool last season 2-1, but the Reds have utterly dominated the head-to-head record between these two in the Premier League over the last decade.
They last suffered defeat way back in December 2015, two months after Jürgen Klopp took charge of the team. Liverpool have won 12 and drawn five of the 17 league meetings since an own goal from Martin Skrtel and a strike from future Red Georginio Wijnaldum secured a 2-0 win for Newcastle 10 years ago.
The Reds won the previous league meeting by that score at Anfield in February, with Dominik Szoboszlai and Alexis Mac Allister finding the net. That followed a 3-3 draw at St. James’ Park last December in which both teams led before Newcastle earned a point with a 90th-minute equaliser.
Newcastle 3-3 Liverpool xG race
Newcastle vs Liverpool Prediction
The Opta supercomputer is predicting an away win for Liverpool. The Premier League champions were successful in 44.1% of the 10,000 simulated matches. This obviously means there’s still more chance that they don’t take three points, though.
A Newcastle victory was the outcome 31.5% of the time, with the remaining 24.4% of the probability assigned to a draw.
Newcastle v Liverpool prediction
Newcastle vs Liverpool Predicted Lineups
Newcastle: Nick Pope, Kieran Trippier, Fabian Schär, Dan Burn, Tino Livramento, Bruno Guimarães, Sandro Tonali, Joelinton, Anthony Elanga, Anthony Gordon, Harvey Barnes.
Head Coach: Eddie Howe
Liverpool: Alisson Becker, Calvin Ramsay, Ibrahima Konaté, Virgil van Dijk, Milos Kerkez, Dominik Szoboszlai, Alexis Mac Allister, Mohamed Salah, Florian Wirtz, Cody Gakpo, Hugo Ekitiké.
Head Coach: Arne Slot
Opta Power Rankings
The Opta Power Rankings are a global team ranking system. They assign an ability score to over 10,000 domestic football teams. This score is on a scale between zero and 100, where zero is the worst-ranked team in the world and 100 is the best team in the world.
Ahead of kick-off on Monday night, here is the Opta Power Ranking for both sides.
Subscribe to our football newsletter to receive exclusive weekly content. You should also follow our social accounts over onX, Instagram, TikTok and Facebook.******