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Newcastle Tackle Wolves In Sunday Showcase

The Premier League returns this weekend with a series of intriguing games, with the majority taking place today as fans up and down the country flock to their respective stadiums in their thousands. As the Christmas holidays await every single side in the top flight will be well aware of the fact that their schedule is about to get an awful lot more hectic, with some of the top teams even playing eight games in the month of December due to playing in multiple competitions. Two teams who find themselves at interesting points in their season, who will also be squaring off in the only Sunday game, are Newcastle United and Wolverhampton Wanderers.

The Magpies and Wolves both find themselves in quite intriguing situations, in the sense that there are high expectations all around regarding their chances for a successful campaign. They’ve had their fair share of ups and downs and both have an awful lot of critics, but we’d argue they should be fairly happy/content with how things have gone. If nothing else they have two managers who will do everything in their power to not only keep them in the division, but also help them push towards the top half.

Rafa Benitez is considered to be a hero by the Newcastle faithful, despite their poor start to the season – with many pointing the finger of blame at Mike Ashley instead. In recent weeks things have slowly been progressing to the point where many are feeling much more optimistic about where they’ll end up, which is a great place for them to be mentally after years and years of uncertainty. They have the squad necessary to push on towards even bigger things, and it’s just a case of seeing how the potential sale of the club progresses.

Nuno Espirito Santo, on the other hand, responded to criticism of Wolves during their recent spell with an emphatic example of ‘bouncebackability’. The boss can do no wrong in the eyes of many supporters and he certainly has a good track record, even if many neutrals are already tipping them to ‘do a Leicester’ in the next few years. That might be a little bit unrealistic but you can’t exactly fault their ambition, unless you’re the ultimate pessimist. Wolves are a fun team to watch and they’ll only get better as time goes on, but it’s important to remember that they’re still in the early stages of this project.

In their last six games Newcastle have had the definition of ‘mixed fortunes’, starting off with a dull 0-0 draw against Southampton. They managed to explode into life in subsequent weeks with victories over Watford, Bournemouth and Burnley, but a 3-0 defeat at the hands of West Ham United sent them crashing back down to earth. Earlier this week they managed to grab a 1-1 draw against Everton which many fans considered to be a big result, and as they look ahead to the winter period, it definitely feels like they’ve got no reason to be afraid of anyone in the division.

Wolves have been slightly less fortune, kicking off their last six game stretch with a narrow 1-0 defeat against Brighton & Hove Albion. A closely fought loss against Tottenham, which finished 3-2, gave them cause for hope, as did a 1-1 draw against Arsenal in which they played very well. Two back to back losses against Huddersfield and Cardiff ensured that the rumblings of a collapse began, though, until they dismantled that thought process courtesy of a huge 2-1 win over Chelsea at Molineux. If that doesn’t scream ‘we play fantastic against the big sides’, then literally nothing will.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzFg6arPpsM

In terms of the head to head rankings it’s actually Wolves who lead overall, with a 39-32 advantage and 23 draws in between. They first squared off way back in 1898, with their last meeting taking place back in Feburary 2017. The Geordies came away with a 1-0 win in that one, although as we’ve noted, they tend to trade victories more often than not. It’s always hard to separate them because they have very similar ‘structures’ if you will, but that’s what tends to make it so exciting.

The hope in the Newcastle camp is that Kenedy and Paul Dummett are both going to be fit enough to start the game, or at the very least, play some kind of role. Isaac Hayden, Florian Lejeune and Karl Darlow have all been officially ruled out, and while Newcastle have strength in depth, it isn’t quite as strong as Wolves. Fabian Schar is also banned but Matt Ritchie will be returning following his suspension, and when you look at their potential starting XI, it almost certainly seems like a team that have a few game winners who could pop up out of nowhere. Then again, you could argue their opponents are in a very similar position.

Ruben Neves will be returning after his one game suspension, but Morgan Gibbs-White made a pretty good impression in the game against the Blues. Leander Dendoncker is expected to get even more game time with Jonny Otto still being out of action, but aside from that, it seems like Wolves have a relatively strong side to choose from. Nuno is going to have to come to terms with the fact that mixing it up isn’t always a bad thing, with many fans noting that he needs to start embracing plan B if they want to end up having a successful season.

Newcastle vs Wolves Betting Prediction

Newcastle are going to try and implement their style on Wolves from the very first minute, but we actually think the two teams are going to show a lot of respect to one another. Both can play great football when they give it their all, and that’s exactly what we’re anticipating. Newcastle will try and play the ball around the back before surging forward, whereas Wolves are going to attempt to dictate the pace in the middle of the park. Both will have equal measures of success, but we also think both will have moments of brilliance.

We can see Newcastle taking the lead early on in the second half, but Wolves won’t panic. They’ve been behind before and they know what it feels like at this level, and we can see them keeping a cool head before grabbing an equaliser in the final ten minutes of the game. This’ll leave the final score at 1-1, and to be honest, neither team can be too unhappy with that. This is the kind of game where if one team gets going then it could get seriously ugly, so a damage free draw isn’t the end of the world.