Newcastle vs Chelsea Preview – A game that needs to be won

Blues will be desperate to put Tuesday night’s defeat behind them by getting all three points at the newly named Sports Direct Arena.

Andre Villas-Boas is monitoring Josh McEachran’s ankle and the tactician is still missing Michael Essien who with anterior cruciate ligament damage.

The home team have a mini-injury crisis with the trio of Cheick Tiote, Sylvain Marveaux and Mike Williamson all out injured. Jonas Gutierrez is also missing as he has a one-match suspension after being sent-off against Manchester United last weekend.

Facts

Newcastle have played Chelsea 66 times at home, of which they have won 34 whereas the Blues have won 17 BUT they have gone eight Premier League games without losing.

The star man for Newcastle this season has been Demba Ba who has impressed with nine goals this season.

Villas-Boas’ side have had problems at the back, before the 1-0 win against Blackburn they had failed to keep a clean sheet in their previous eight games.

Betting

Newcastle are 11/4, whereas Chelsea are a generous 23/20 and a draw is 28/11 which is likely to be a popular choice.

With this game likely to be a tight one, under 2.5 goals could be worth backing at 8/11.

Fernando Torres is favourite to score first at 9/2, whilst fellow striker Didier Drogba is 5s and this season’s shinning light Daniel Surridge is 6s.

Newcastle’s star man Ba is 13/2, and could be worth backing – he has impressed in the last two games against the two Manchester clubs.

By Scott Balaam

Twitter @AStamBridge2Far