Newcastle United v Chelsea: Premier League – live!

And that’s your lot for the first

45
50 minutes. Not a classic yet, but eventful enough. Chelsea have dominated, but it’s Newcastle who have come closest to scoring, Joelinton smashing a McDonald/Shearer/Carroll-esque header off the crossbar.

45 min +5: The home crowd accuse the referee of ineptitude via the medium of song, but that was the correct decision, and VAR would have spotted it anyway.

45 min +4: Joelinton has the ball in the net, Ritchie having taken a quick free kick from the centre circle with Chelsea light at the back. The striker raced free down the right, and slapped the ball past Kepa, but Chelsea had stopped playing because the referee had noticed the ball was rolling when Ritchie took the set piece, and whistled accordingly.

45 min +3: Some pinball in the Newcastle box, instigated by Azpilicueta’s low left-wing cross. Willian nearly gets a chance to shoot. Instead, Ritchie hooks hysterically over the bar. Hudson-Odoi’s resulting corner is no good.

45 min +2: Willian sashays in from the left, then feeds Azpilicueta on the overlap. Corner. Mount takes, and it’s easily snaffled by Dubravka.

45 min: There will be five added minutes, a result of the Willems injury.

44 min: Mount whips a low free kick towards the bottom right, but can’t get past the Newcastle wall. Not great. The resulting deflection does earn a corner, mind … but that particular set piece is easily cleared by the home defence. Chelsea come back at Newcastle, but there’s more misery for Mount as he slips while crossing from the left. Shank! Goal kick.

42 min: Almiron clumsily runs into the back of Jorginho, 25 yards out, just to the right of centre. A free kick in a very promising position for the visitors.

40 min: Hudson-Odoi finds Mount, 12 yards out, with a cross from the right flank. Mount slaps a header harmlessly over. Both sides have had their chances.

39 min: James drops a shoulder to diddle Ritchie down the right. His cross hits the first man, but top marks for the way the young full-back earned himself the space and right to do so, even if the final product was uncharacteristically lacking this time.

38 min: A free kick for Newcastle out on the right. Shelvey swings it in from deep. Fernandez rises highest, but can’t keep his header from six yards down.

37 min: Hayden’s absolutely fine. This much we know because he’s just foolishly run the ball out of play at high speed, with Newcastle developing a rare, promising attack down the right.

35 min: Christensen climbs on the back of Joelinton, but Newcastle don’t get the free kick. On the touchline, Steve Bruce critiques the referee in the Anglo Saxon style, and earns a bollocking from the official for his trouble.

34 min: The busy James pearls a low shot-cum-cross into the Newcastle six-yard box from a tight angle on the right. Dubravka is in the right position to block and clear. Newcastle are beginning to look a little ragged.

33 min: A stunning move by Chelsea. Willian curls in from the left. Kante flicks a header on. Abraham is a little ahead of the ball, so sticks out a boot and backheels an effort onto the underside of the crossbar! That was an inch or so away from flying into the top left. Ah, he was offside, so had it gone in, it wouldn’t have counted. But what improvisation by Abraham.

31 min: The ref blows up, pausing the play to allow Fernandez to put his boot back on. It’s slowly turning into that sort of game. Excitement, please!

29 min: Abraham tries to make up for it, taking a shot from 25 yards. It flies 25 yards over the bar. Meanwhile Oliver Lewis isn’t having it that Newcastle are currently cursed with injuries: “A few injuries are bad luck, this many is consistently throwing players back in too soon, playing players even though the medical team say they are likely to be injured and I suspect some ‘old school’ training methods. Of course some is bad luck but something has to change, this is preposterous. So many millions of pounds of investment out of action for large parts of the season.”

28 min: James curls an Alexander-Arnoldesque low cross into the Newcastle box from deep. That’s a fine pass that nearly sticks on Abraham, six yards out. But Abraham takes his eye off the ball as he attempts to trap and turn, and the chance is gone. James is one hell of a prospect.

26 min: Chelsea pin Newcastle back. Not that Newcastle need much encouragement to sit deep. They keep their shape as Willian, Mount and Azpilicueta toil on the left, unable to open up the hosts.

24 min: That’s woken St James’ Park up a bit. The home faithful had been subdued since the early loss of Willems. Incidentally, it seems like Hayden is moving around in a much freer style now.

22 min: Joelinton crashes a header off the underside of the crossbar! He beat Kepa all ends up, having met Fernandez’s wonderful right-wing cross, but his luck still isn’t in. Chelsea hack clear. So unlucky. That was a wonderful header. Andy Carroll would have been proud of it.

20 min: Newcastle have had just 31% possession so far, which is low even by their own standards, the aforementioned 33.6%. If they keep this up all season, they’ll easily break the lowest possession record since records began in 2003, beating Neil Warnock’s 2018-19 Cardiff team (33.9%) and four different Tony Pulis vintages (at Stoke, West Brom and Palace, between 36.6% and 38.6%).

19 min: Almiron bustles down the right and hooks a cross into the mixer. Chelsea half clear, and Saint-Maximin tries to curl a spectacular one into the top right from distance. His effort just about stays in the stadium.

18 min: Ah this is good to see. Hayden caught a sore one there, but he’s able to get up and after a quick trot around to check what’s what, continues to play. He’s not moving around totally smoothly, but here’s hoping it’s not too serious and he can run it off.

16 min: This is preposterous. Now Hayden is down, clutching his ankle while contesting a ball with Mount. Newcastle appear cursed at the minute.

14 min: Mount busies himself down the left and squirts the ball across the face of Newcastle’s goal. The ball refuses to spin into the net, and there’s nobody in blue there to force it home. A goal immediately after Willems’ departure really would have added insult to injury.

12 min: Not sure whether Willems’ injury has been caused by the impact of knee on knee, or a twist as he landed. It was completely accidental, a garden-variety 50-50 challenge with Hudson-Odoi. Poor Willems departs on a stretcher and is replaced by Matt Ritchie. On the touchline, Steve Bruce shakes his head in disbelief and despair. His pre-match quotes look particularly poignant now. Newcastle and their players can’t catch a break.

10 min: Oh no, is this more injury woe for Newcastle? Willems clatters into Hudson-Odoi, falls to the ground, and batters the turf dramatically with his fist in a mix of frustration and pain. He immediately waves to his bench. It was a whack of knee on knee, and Willems shakes his head repeatedly as the trainer assesses the damage.

8 min: Willian threatens to break clear down the left, but changes his mind and pulls the ball back for Azpilicueta, who blooters a shot into a thicket of players just inside the Newcastle box. Unsurprisingly, it’s blocked and cleared. But this is all Chelsea in the opening exchanges.

7 min: This corner leads to a small game of head tennis, and eventually the flag pops up for offside. Chelsea’s first sustained period of pressure comes to an end.

6 min: Willian earns the first corner of the game, bursting down the left and playing the ball off Fernandez. Chelsea take it short, working it back to Hudson-Odoi, who tears down the inside-left channel and wins a second corner, this time off Almiron.

5 min: So having said that, Newcastle build a patient attack, hogging the ball down the right flank. Eventually Almiron hooks a deep cross towards Saint-Maximin, who can’t keep his header, intended to flash back across goal from the left, in play.

4 min: Newcastle seem happy to sit back, coiled and ready to spring on the counter when they break up Chelsea’s attacks. This shouldn’t come as a huge surprise: they’ve got the lowest possession percentage of any team in this season’s Premier League: 33.6%. Burnley are the next cab on the rank with a whopping 40.1%.

2 min: All a bit scrappy in the opening exchanges. Clark taking an aeon over a throw near the halfway line doesn’t help the early momentum.

Here we go, then! Chelsea get the ball rolling. A lively afternoon-spent-in-the-Strawberry atmosphere at St James’ Park. Long may it continue.

Howay the lads! The teams are out! Newcastle are in their famous black and white stripes, while Chelsea sport their storied royal blue. A quick blast of the theme from the greatest film ever made, and we’ll be off.

Here’s Frank Lampard, who has never lost to Steve Bruce in the Premier League either as a player or manager. It’s 14 wins and four draws from 18 games! “A lot of results Newcastle have got, and they’ve got some good results this year, have been in a certain way. So we can look at that. But they also have threats in forward areas. They have some danger as well.” He adds that they’ve been working on breaking down packed defences, admitting it’s something they occasionally struggle to do. As for the recall of N’Golo Kante? “It’s a good thing to have competition, so Ross Barkley can and should feel disappointed, and that’s part of my job. Everyone has to be on their toes and playing well.”

Steve Bruce talks! “It’s good to see the bigger players back. We have been up against it. I’ve never witnessed anything like the Leicester thing when we lost four players in 12 minutes. Let’s hope we stay fit and healthy. When your better players are not there, you’re up against it. Joelinton has been having a tough time, he’s got a goal the other night, so let’s hope it’s done the trick. He’s a good player. Almiron was the same, he’s now got four in the last six. So let’s hope that continues.”

Newcastle make six changes to the XI sent out against Rochdale in midweek. Martin Dubravka, Jonjo Shelvey, Ciaran Clark, Jetro Willems, Federico Fernandez and Allan Saint-Maximin are back; Karl Darlow, Florian Lejeune, Matt Ritchie, Christian Atsu and both Longstaffs step down.

Chelsea make one change to the team that beat Burnley 3-0 last Saturday. N’Golo Kante relegates Ross Barkley to a seat on the bench.

Newcastle United: Dubravka, Krafth, Fernandez, Lascelles, Clark, Willems, Almiron, Hayden, Shelvey, Saint-Maximin, Joelinton.
Subs: Schar, Ritchie, Lejeune, Darlow, Atsu, Sean Longstaff, Matthew Longstaff.

Chelsea: Arrizabalaga, James, Christensen, Rudiger, Azpilicueta, Kante, Jorginho, Mount, Hudson-Odoi, Abraham, Willian.
Subs: Barkley, Pedro, Caballero, Zouma, Kovacic, Batshuayi, Emerson Palmieri.

Referee: Chris Kavanagh (Lancashire).

It’s hard to get a handle on these two teams. Newcastle started the Premier League season with five losses in their first nine. They then won six from 11, magically transforming themselves into a comfortable mid-table team. And now another slide: one point from the last 12 on offer. Thirteenth place in the table is about right, but they’ll have to start winning a few more games soon, or they’ll be back in the basement lickety split.

Chelsea aren’t exactly the most predictable either. Just two wins from their first eight fixtures in all competitions this season, followed by seven victories on the spin. In the last month or so they’ve been turned over by the likes of West Ham, Everton, Bournemouth and Southampton; during the same period they’ve also enjoyed big wins at Arsenal and Tottenham. Another curate’s egg of a side.

But Chelsea are in fourth spot despite it all, and will be favourites to prevail this evening. Not least because they’ve won six of the last seven matches between these two clubs, the exception being a final-day 3-0 breeze for Newcastle at the end of the 2017-18 season, when Antonio Conte’s head was elsewhere. Frank Lampard’s men have also had the week off to prepare, while Steve Bruce’s side were forced to replay their third-round FA Cup tie with Rochdale. The Toon will hope the mental boost of a 4-1 win will offset any physical consequences.

Kick off is at 5.30pm GMT. Saturday night prime-time entertainment is ON!