Sky Sports expert’s verdict – From ‘Newcastle United to fill their boots’ to this

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·30. November 2024

Sky Sports expert’s verdict – From ‘Newcastle United to fill their boots’ to this

The Sky Sports column ‘Jones Knows’ has given some interesting analysis and commentary on what is currently the position at Newcastle United.

The column makes predictions on what will happen at certain Premier League matches and also debates other matters/issues at clubs as well.

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However, unlike the usual ex-pro predictions, that are usually simply based on how ‘big’ a club is and whether or not they won the previous game, this one has proper analysis and insight, not lazy assumptions.

The Sky Sports ‘Jones Knows’ column looks at the matches from a betting perspective and has been concentrating on this Newcastle United game away at Crystal Palace.

Lewis Jones (who is the Sky Sports expert behind the ‘Jones Knows’ column) has highlighted some major underlying factors that could / should have a big bearing on this Crystal Palace v Newcastle game.

“Newcastle’s games this season have seen just 26 goals scored combined – it’s the joint-fewest with Manchester United as Eddie Howe’s side are becoming a profitable under goals team to follow.

“The issues stem from their inability to be clinical with their finishing, scoring 13 goals from a haul of 18.3 expected goals with a shot conversation rate of just 8.3 per cent – the third worst in the Premier League.

“And who has the worst conversation rate? Crystal Palace with just 5.9 per cent. It explains why they’ve only scored three goals at home this season.

“Under 2.5 goals at Evens with Sky Bet is going to go very close in a tight game.

“Score prediction: Crystal Palace 1 Newcastle 1”

Always interesting to hear what the Sky Sports expert has to say with his analysis on Newcastle United matches and as usual, some good stuff there.

A bit of a shift in view here, as Lewis Jones declared ahead of Newcastle v West Ham, ‘I’m fully expecting Newcastle to fill their boots here.’

When taking on the bookies, our Sky Sports expert has been getting his fingers burnt on a regular basis with his Newcastle United predictions.

Jones having confidently predicted Newcastle to fail to score and to lose against Arsenal, then saw no way Eddie Howe’s side could score more than one goal at the City Ground and would lose in that match as well.

I think ahead of this Palace match, the man from Sky Sports has summed up the Newcastle United situation pretty well.

If/when Eddie Howe’s side start regularly taking a decent number of the many chances they are creating, then they can have a really good season. At the other end of the pitch, only Liverpool and Arsenal have conceded less than Newcastle’s 13 Premier League goals, whilst United have conceded just 14 goals in their 16 matches in all competitions so far this season.

I think that the signs were there that Newcastle were starting to find their shooting boots, in the 2-0 cup win over Chelsea, the 1-0 against Arsenal (from few clear cut NUFC chances, whilst Arsenal were limited to even fewer), then the 3-1 at Forest – though actually that could/should have been an even bigger winning margin.

Here’s hoping Eddie Howe and his players can confound the Sky Sports expert once again, so long as it is in a positive winning kind of way.

Newcastle United upcoming matches confirmed to end of January 2025:

Saturday 30 November – Crystal Palace v Newcastle (3pm)

Wednesday 4 December – Newcastle v Liverpool (7.30pm) Amazon

Saturday 7 December – Brentford v Newcastle (3pm)

Saturday 14 December – Newcastle v Leicester (3pm)

Wednesday 18 December – Newcastle v Brentford (7.45pm) Sky Sports+ (Carabao Cup)

Saturday 21 December – Ipswich v Newcastle (3pm)

Thursday 26 December – Newcastle v Villa (3pm) Amazon

Monday 30 December – Man U v Newcastle (8pm) Sky Sports

Saturday 4 January – Tottenham v Newcastle (12.30pm) TNT Sports

Wednesday 15 January – Newcastle v Wolves (7.30pm) TNT Sports