Newcastle vs Brighton Prediction, Lineups and Betting Tips: Best bets at St James' Park

Sunday sees an important FA Cup quarter-final clash between Newcastle United and Brighton at St James' Park.

Read on for Matthew O’Regan best bets.

Newcastle come into this match off the back of a 2-0 defeat at champions-in-waiting Liverpool. While the performance was nothing to be ashamed of, the pre-match injury suffered by Alexander Isak will worry Eddie Howe. So far in the cup, his side have beaten Bromley at home and Birmingham away, so face their first opponent above League One level on Sunday.

Questions remain on how the manager will set his side up. Newcastle sit sixth in the Premier League, two points off the Champions League places, while also facing a Carabao Cup final against Liverpool in two weeks. A league game against West Ham on Monday 10th March is sandwiched between the games.

A nine-game winning streak saw Newcastle competing on all fronts, but 1-4, 1-2, 4-0 and 2-0 losses to Bournemouth, Fulham, Manchester City and Liverpool respectively in the last six in the league have hindered momentum. However, in front of a sold-out, passionate St. James Park, Newcastle have the chance to edge one game closer to their first major trophy since 1955.

On the injury front, the aforementioned Alexander Isak could be fit enough to make the bench, while Sven Botman and Joelinton could make their returns to the bench. Jamaal Lascelles remains out.

Brighton sit just one point and two places their hosts in the league and have already beaten Norwich (0-4) and Chelsea (2-1) to reach the fifth round. The Seagulls have lost just twice in their last thirteen games, but both losses came in a disappointing week, losing 0-1 to Everton, before a 7-0 thumping at Nottingham Forest. Since then, Albion have won four games on the bounce.

Brighton’s change in fortune has coincided with Fabian Hurzeler seemingly settling on his best side. The 3-0 league over Chelsea saw only one change from the cup win over the Blues – with Adam Webster coming in for the injured Lewis Dunk. Two changes were made for the 0-4 thumping of Southampton, with Joel Veltman and Danny Welbeck missing through injury.

Chairman Tony Bloom spent big in the summer, with Hurzeler blessed with an array of options. However, no side has had players miss more days with injuries than Brighton. While players are slowly returning to fitness, Ferdi Kadioglu, Igor, James Milner, Jason Steele, Joel Veltman and Lewis Dunk remain out. The German gaffer faces a tough decision in who to rotate.

Danny Welbeck is ageing like fine wine. An argument could be made that he is playing the best football of his career at Brighton. The 34-year-old has seven goals and four assists in 17 starts, scoring just three minutes after coming off the bench against Bournemouth. Welbeck also registered two assists in the 3-0 win over Chelsea.

This season, he is averaging 0.68 goal/assists per 90, scoring the only goal of the game as Brighton emerged 0-1 victors at Newcastle earlier in the season.

Overseeing this game is Anthony Taylor. The highly regarded official refereed West Ham’s 2-0 win over Leicester on Thursday night, showing zero cards. This was the second game in succession he has given no cards, after blanking in Liverpool’s win over Manchester City.

Over his last nine games, he has averaged just 1.33 cards, showing less than five in 12 of his last 14 games. Ten of Brighton’s 15 away games have seen less than five cards, with their two cup ties seeing zero and four.

Newcastle home games have had high average of cards, but with Brighton’s tame away record coupled with Anthony Taylor’s tendency to shine away from cards, we could see a low card count on Sunday. Since 2016, 86% of all Premier League clashes in the FA Cup fifth round have seen under 4.5 cards.

Newcastle vs Brighton Lineups

The starting lineups for Newcastle vs Brighton will be displayed in the graphic below once the team news has been announced.