Newcastle vs. Bournemouth Betting Tips: Isak to torment vulnerable visitors

Sandwiched between the Premier League’s two televised clashes on Saturday you’ll find Newcastle vs Bournemouth, which takes place at St James’ Park at 3pm. The match pits Toon incumbent Eddie Howe against his former club where he achieved so much during his historic two spells at the helm. 

Here at BettingOdds.com we’ve previewed the match-up and picked out a couple of player prop bets…

Since they opened up the campaign with a straightforward 2-0 win at home to Nottingham Forest, Newcastle have recorded four draws and a defeat. The loss was in the 98th minute away to Liverpool, so nothing to be deflated about. The 3-3 draw at home to Man City was absolutely mesmerising, but Eddie Howe will be slightly irked at the draws against Brighton, Wolves and Crystal Palace - all respective results - given that this is a club with a not-so-secret ambition of cracking the top-6, and beyond.

Newcastle (4/9) will be expected to end their five-game winless streak at home to Bournemouth, who are still looking for a new permanent manager after binning Scott Parker and his collection of cardigans. In fairness, interim boss Gary O’Neill has done an admirable job so far in testing circumstances: lifting his troops up from that final, fatal 9-0 abomination at Anfield to register four points from games against Wolves and Nottingham Forest. The latter saw the Cherries bounce back from two goals down to win 3-2 at the City Ground and they are priced-up at 7/1 to back that up with another away win on Saturday.

A surprise signing towards the end of the summer transfer window, Alexander Isak has settled in swiftly at Newcastle following his club-record £63m switch from Real Sociedad.

Powerful, pacy and technical, Isak scored at Anfield on his Toon debut then should really have added another when one-on-one against Crystal Palace in a game that had 43 shots but remarkably no goals. 

Isak’s taken five shots and had three on target during 153 minutes of Premier League action so far - scoring that one goal - figures which we expect to rise on Saturday when the league’s most porous defence arrives at St James’ Park.

Bournemouth have already conceded 18 goals in their six games. Yes, half of those came in Parker’s final showing at Liverpool, but they’ve also leaked 2+ in four of their other five games. 

Bournemouth’s opponents have had an eye-popping 95 shots in six games, 34 of which have been on target. With 6-foot-4 Isak purring, and no doubt eager to notch his first St James’ Park goal, you can expect another busy afternoon for the Bournemouth backline, with bet365 pricing the dynamic striker at 6/5 to have over 1.5 shots on target. The same bet is odds-on with the majority of other major outlets.

I’ve spoken above about how Bournemouth could struggle to contain Isak on Saturday. Additionally, they could face the trickery/panache of Allan Saint-Maximin and the clever movement of Callum Wilson, both of whom are in contention to return following niggles.

With Newcastle expected to have a lot of the ball on home soil, it could prove to be a long day for Bournemouth’s Adam Smith who has already been booked a joint-league-high four times in six games this season. 

Deployed at right back and right wingback, Smith has been handed a yellow for four pretty wretched fouls, including an arm to the face of Cancelo and a shocking late lunge on Henderson. Now facing the prospect of coming up against the aforementioned trio of Isak, Saint-Maximin and Wilson, I really don’t fancy his chances of escaping the ref’s little black book, with the defender 12/5 to be carded (bet365).