Fulham v Newcastle Preview

Score Draw the bet at Fulham

Fulham v Newcastle Preview:

Premier League: Saturday, 21 January 2012 3pm

Author: Thomas Rooney 18/01/2012

Fulham take on Newcastle on Saturday afternoon looking to recover from their disappointing defeat to Blackburn Rovers last time out. The Geordies meanwhile will be looking for another three points to boost their chances of European football next season.

Looking at Fulham to begin with, it is fair to say that it has been an up and down season. Like several Premier League teams, they have shown flashes of their best form, but just when it seems as if they are set for a good run, a negative result occurs.

If you had said to a Fulham fan at the start of the season that victories would be achieved against Arsenal and Liverpool, as well as draws with Chelsea and Manchester City, you would have expected them to be higher than 14th in the table.

You can easily see why they are struggling though and perhaps the last two league games summarise their season quite nicely. An excellent 2-1 win was achieved over Arsenal before a 3-1 defeat at a Blackburn side that were down to ten men for three quarters of the game.

This is perhaps a transitional season for manager Martin Jol though. It is his first season in charge of the club and he has perhaps not been able to put his full stamp on proceedings just yet.

So perhaps the target for this year is to stay up – something they should do comfortably – and then build towards more success next season.

Having said that, the more victories they achieve at this stage of the season, the better. If they rack up a decent number of points going into the last five games, they can perhaps experiment a bit more in preparation for a good go at things next year.

Newcastle United are all about the now though and they have been speaking about their ambitions for the season recently. Having beaten QPR in the first match without leading scorer Demba Ba, they believe that a top six finish is more than achievable.

Who can blame them either? At the moment they are in possession of 6th place and are even level with Arsenal in 5th. It’s not as if the Gunners or Liverpool are showing anything for Alan Pardew’s men to be wary of is it?

As has been mentioned before, this is so much more than a good start for Newcastle now. They are well established in the top seven and with 5th perhaps the highest they can finish, this has to be their aim.

Their movement in the January transfer window will be interesting. Leon Best may have covered for Ba with the winning goal against QPR, but would they like another attacking option to call upon in the next few weeks? We shall see.

They could do with an away win too, making this trip to Fulham extremely significant for how the next month or so could shape up for them. They have only won once on the road since the end of October.

This should be a tight match overall with both teams more than capable of holding their own. Therefore, an entertaining score draw could be the way to go.

Match bet: Draw @ 23/10 with Bet365 - get your stake money back if the game finishes 0-0.

Correct score prediction: Fulham 2:2 Newcastle @ 33/2 with Betfair