Nottingham Forest v Newcastle Tips

With the relegation battle heating up and European places still up for grabs, Nottingham Forest and Newcastle could be a sneakily fun Premier League fixture on Friday.

Newcastle back on track?

After five games without a win in the Premier League, Newcastle finally secured all three points on Sunday when they beat Wolves. It was only Newcastle’s second league win of 2023, and the first time since the Carabao Cup quarter-final on January 10 that they’ve scored multiple goals in a game.

Ironically Forest are winless in five straight themselves, so this could be a prime opportunity to build some momentum. Newcastle might be four points adrift of the top four, but they have two games in hand on Tottenham and a victory to kick off the weekend puts the pressure on Spurs to keep pace.

It’s also been about six weeks since Newcastle produced consecutive wins in all competitions, so the jury is still out on whether they can produce the goods.

Navas magic wearing off?

Keylor Navas practically robbed Leeds United on his Forest debut as he produced four top-drawer saves to preserve a 1-0 win on February 5.

Since then, Forest haven’t kept a clean sheet and have allowed 12 goals in five matches. That’s not to say that Navas has been poor, but it’s apparent that the Costa Rican shot-stopper won’t single-handedly save Forest from relegation.

With or without Navas, Forest have been very stingy at City Ground in the Premier League this season and have conceded just 15 goals. They picked up two draws at home against Fulham and Everton with the Costa Rican shot-stopper starting, so perhaps a bit of home cooking is the key to capturing some of that magic.

City Ground Trickery

Forest are unbeaten at home in the Premier League since September with four wins and five draws in that span. Counter that with Newcastle only scoring five times in the league in 2023, which includes the two goals in last weekend’s victory, as well as ‘the Navas factor’, and this game will likely go in favour of the defences.

A draw is likely and 3.95 seems like good value, but I’ll play safe with under 1.5 goals as well in case a side snatches a 1-0 victory.