Newcastle travel to face Chelsea tonight with the Magpies having dropped down to 17th place in the Premier League table following other results over the weekend.
Steve Bruce’s side picked up a much-needed victory last time out, showing plenty of character and continuing their recent upturn in performances to earn a 3-2 win over Southampton at St James’ Park. That saw them bounce straight back from the 2-1 defeat they suffered against Crystal Palace at home in a game which formed part of a sequence of just one win in 10 Premier League matches.
In their last three matches, Newcastle have shown much more of an attacking intent and they have found a way to get the likes of Miguel Almiron further up the pitch, where he is able to have a greater influence on proceedings. Bruce has already confirmed to the media ahead of this game that Newcastle will be showing a similar approach against Chelsea despite recent injury setbacks.
Newcastle had been starting to get some key players back and appear to have more depth in the squad, but they have suffered major injury blows to the likes of top scorer Callum Wilson, Javier Manquillo and Fabian Schar. That will mean that Bruce needs to reshuffle things somewhat but the pressure will be on to maintain the recent performance levels.
It will be interesting to see what sort of team Bruce picks to take on a Chelsea side who have certainly been buoyed by Thomas Tuchel’s arrival and look a much more difficult prospect to face now than they were a few weeks ago.
Here is how we think Bruce will line up for the trip to Stamford Bridge, with four enforced changes from the team which started against Southampton last time out…
