Newcastle United v Cardiff City- A Heavyweight Championship Clash
Friday night’s game at St James Park brings together two of the teams in the running for one of the automatic promotion slots to the Premiership. The hosts have been front-running since September while Cardiff have edged into contention since the turn of the year.
Eleven points lie between Newcastle at the top and the Welsh side in fourth but Dave Jones’s side are in good form and have posted more away wins in the league than any other team- and their last one was an astounding 6-0 pasting of Bristol City.
Cardiff’s Away Record Will Be Key
This is a match where the division’s best away record comes into contact with the premier home one. Chris Hughton hasn’t seen his charges beaten in fourteen outings on home turf and while Cardiff scored six at Bristol, Newcastle have only conceded that many at home in the whole campaign.
This is the sort of game Cardiff have to be looking to win if they are going to put a realistic dent in the Magpies’ considerable lead. The victory at Bristol will put them in good heart as the West Country side had only lost once at home before that avalanche of goals.
Newcastle can afford a draw, especially as Nottingham Forest’s nineteen game unbeaten run came to a crashing end at Derby County last weekend. The Geordies hold pole position and have been the most consistent team all season- to the surprise of some of their long suffering fans.
Goals Galore Guaranteed
Cardiff City have the creative players to give any defence an examination though. Winger Peter Whittingham has nine assists- second in the division- while Jay Bothroyd and Chris Burke are also in the leading group for this category with eight and six respectively.
Newcastle have their own magicians in Wayne Routledge and Danny Guthrie – seventeen assists between them. This is certainly a fixture that is very unlikely to end in a goalless draw.
Whittingham and Michael Chopra top the goal charts for the whole league with fifteen and fourteen. Newcastle have shared their goals around but they have the most dangerous attacker from midfield in Kevin Nolan, who has bagged ten so far.
An entertaining match seems certain as both managers take a positive approach. On current form Cardiff are capable of taking something from their long trip north; a high scoring draw is a likely outcome for this one, if you’re feeling brave then a 2-2 draw looks great value at 12.00 alternatively you could go for over 3.5 goals scored in the game at 3.20.
The rest of the weekend’s Championship fixtures ar eslated in for Saturday. For odds on all of these games head over to PartyBets.com.
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