Fulham vs Newcastle Odds
| Fulham Odds | +145 |
| Newcastle Odds | +175 |
| Draw | +260 |
| Over / Under | 2.5 -175o / +137u |
Fulham will look to rebound from its midweek loss to Nottingham Forest when it hosts Newcastle.
The Cottagers were thrashed Tuesday, 3-1, by Nottingham Forest, their second straight match dropping points to a team in the relegation fight. Fulham has had a bit of a resurgence over the second half of the season that has it comfortably in the middle of the table and far away from the relegation fight. They are only three points off getting into the top half, so three points here at home would be massive.
Newcastle is going through an injury crisis and even though the results have been somewhat positive, it is in a state of peril at the moment. The outstanding defense that drove them to a top-four finish a season ago is pretty much nonexistent, so they have been forced into back-and-forth matches with everyone in the Premier League. They did beat Fulham 3-0 in the previous meeting and need a good result here to continue challenging for a European spot in the table.
Let's get to our Fulham vs. Newcastle prediction and pick.
Fulham
Fulham is not the team we saw in the beginning of the season, and it's because their change in style of play has worked out for the better. Last year and for the first part of this season, Fulham was a low block, counter attacking style team, but it was drastically overperforming its expected metrics.
To Marco Silva's credit, he recognized that and said it was only a matter of time before the regression hits them, so he changed his team more toward where the rest of the Premier League is going and has them pressing higher up the pitch to try to disrupt the opponents' build-up play. The result of that is Fulham is not playing some crazy high-event type matches, because by nature it is a team that is better when playing in transition, so a lot of their matches end up looking like a basketball game. Take their last two matches for example: Drawing 3-3 with Sheffield United and losing 3-1 against Nottingham Forest was a result of them playing more open.
Since the start of 2024, Fulham's matches are averaging 3.45 expected goals, not only because they've decided to play more open, but they don't have a really good striker giving them elite production. Fulham is now starting young Brazilian Rodrigo Muniz up top and he's been on fire. In his 12.4 90s, he is averaging 4.42 shots per 90 minutes and has already scored eight goals. Muniz is a real threat in transition compared to Raúl Jiménez, who was starting up top for the first part of the season, which is why Fulham matches have been more chaotic.
Newcastle
Newcastle is out of options with all of the injuries to its defense. Now Jamaal Lascelles is injured, which means Fabian Schär is the only true center back it has available. As a result, their defense has drastically declined in their high press. Because of injuries to Joelinton, Sven Botman and Lewis Miley, they have decided to be incredibly aggressive in their pressing structure by bringing their back line high up the pitch to man mark the opposing attackers. This has caused transition-based teams like Luton, Nottingham Forest, Bournemouth and West Ham to all find space in behind the last line of defense because Newcastle’s back line is slow. Since it made that switch to its pressing structure against Aston Villa, Newcastle has conceded 15.5 expected goals in its last nine matches.
Although the Newcastle defense has been so terrible, the aggressiveness it has played with out of possession has actually led to them being very productive offensively. Since the Aston Villa match, Newcastle is averaging 1.90 xG per 90 minutes, which has a lot do with the fact that its best attacking player, Alexander Isak, is healthy.
Isak has quietly been on a tear recently, scoring five goals over his last five Premier League matches, which brings his total up to 15 goals for the season. What is even crazier is he currently has a 0.8 xG per 90 minute scoring rate, which is second in the Premier League behind only Erling Haaland.
Fulham vs Newcastle
Prediction
This has all of the makings to be one of the crazier Premier League matches of the season. Both teams are willing to be aggressive out of possession and are also wanting to get into a back-and-forth transitional game.
Newcastle's matches always feature huge chances at both ends of the pitch. Combined, there have been 72 big scoring chances created, which is by far the most of any Premier League side. Newcastle having Isak healthy is huge, but also getting Harvey Barnes back from a long term injury gives them another goal-scoring option from out wide.
I have 3.76 goals projected for this match, so I love the value on Over 3 goals at -118.
Pick: Over 3 Goals (-118 via Bet365)
