Newcastle v West Ham Tips: Hosts to slow burn the Ham

• Hosts have kept a league-record 12 clean sheets this season

• Callum Wilson has nine goals in 11 games against Southampton

• West Ham missing injured forward duo

Newcastle v West Ham
Saturday 4 February, 17:30
Live on Sky Sports

Newcastle are peaking

Newcastle are alongside Fulham, the (positive) surprise package of the Premier League this season.

They're currently third, tied with Manchester United on goal difference on 39 points.

Whether they're still ahead of United come May remains to be seen but they'll be bitterly disappointed if they don't end up in the Top Four, play in the Champions League next season and begin to give their owners a return on their considerable investment.

But maybe it shouldn't be that much of a surprise after all. Manager Eddie Howe is an excellent coach who performed miracles at Bournemouth and would be many people's top choice to take over the England job when Gareth Southgate calls it a day.

They have quality players making up the spine of the team with the formidable Nick Pope in goal, Fabian Schar marshalling the defence, Bruno Guimaraes in the all-action role in midfield, and Callum Wilson leading the line well with pace, strength, good runs and goals.

Elsewhere, Kieran Trippier is probably nailed-on at right back in the Premier League team of the season, while Miguel Almiron had a superb purple patch just before the World Cup, and everyone else has chipped in.

They're in fine form too and have been particularly tight in defence of late, as we'll see in a minute.

On Tuesday night they booked their place in the EFL Cup final thanks to a straightforward 2-1 second-leg win against Southampton, with the unlikely figure of Sean Longstaff netting both goals.

But it came at a cost. The impressive Guimaraes was a little over-zealous all night and after a series of niggly fowls, saw a direct red for a bad and completely unnecessary late tackle when they were in full control of the tie. They'll miss him badly for the next three matches.

Jonjo Shelvey, who is injured anyway, has moved to Nottingham Forest.

New recruit Anthony Gordon could well get a start.

Plenty of work ahead of vastly experienced Moyes

It's been a strangely poor season for West Ham, who really looked like they were building something last season.

They're currently 16th in the table and it's only not worse than that because they were fortunate to have hosted a hapless Everton last time out. So hapless that they sacked manager Frank Lampard shortly after the match.

The 25 goals they've conceded so far isn't actually too bad, the bigger worry being that they've scored just 17 in 20 games so far.

Gianluca Scamacca can be somewhat forgiven for netting just three after arriving from a very different league over in Serie A, a tally bettered only by Jarrod Bowen, two of which were scored in that win over Everton.

For the record, Dany Ings has six but they were all scored at Southampton before his move to the Hammers a couple of weeks ago.
Both Scamacca and Ings are likely to sit this one out with injury, meaning there could be a rare start upfront for the out-of-sorts Michail Antonio.

While he carries on being employed, David Moyes carries on racking up appearances as a Premier League manager. Opta tell us that in this match, he'll overtake Harry Redknapp into third place for the most games as gaffer in the Premier League, with 642.

Hosts to edge a slow-burner

If someone had told you this time last year that Newcastle would be 1.645/8 to beat West Ham, you probably wouldn't have believed them.

But they're 21 points better off, have conceded 14 goals fewer, have scored 16 more and most crucially of all, have kept 12 clean sheets to the Hammers' four.

Opta remind us that figure includes the Magpies not conceding in any of their last six, and this despite hosting Chelsea and visiting table-toppers Arsenal.

So if Newcastle are so stingy at the back and West Ham are missing two of their most likely sources of a goal, we're instantly drawn, and with good reason, to the Match Odds and Over/Under 2.5 goals market.

On the Sportsbook, you can get 12/5 on Newcastle winning with under 2.5 goals, which is the same as saying Newcastle will win 1-0 or 2-0.

There have admittedly been a few cases of Newcastle racking up the goals this campaign. They drew 3-3 with Man City, beat Fulham 4-1 away and Brentford 5-1, for example.

But low-scoring matches have been their modus operandi of late.

There's a little bit of a worry that they might make it four 0-0s from their last five in the PL, given it's currently three from their last four.

And you can of course hedge your bets if you wish by having a couple of quid on another goalless draw at a big-looking 14.527/2 on the Exchange.

We might have to wait till the second half to see a goal in what could be a real slow-burner but that win by 1-0 or 2-0 looks like a solid bet, so that's what we'll go with.

Best of the Sportsbook bets

On the Sportsbook, Callum Wilson may be worth a look on the goalscorer markets.

Opta tell us West Ham are his favourite side to play against with nine goals in 11 appearances against them.

It's been a while since he's scored, admittedly, but he'll get fewer better chances than this one to get back in the goals, against a leaky defence. He's 7/5 to score and 7/2 to be the first goalscorer. Bigger prices should be available on the Exchange.

Newcastle skipper Kieran Trippier only has one goal to his name for the season but it's not for want of trying. He often pulls rank to take any freekicks in dangerous positions and should be on duty here. He's also picked up five bookings for the season already so the 3/1 he scores or is shown a card could be of interest.

Make use of this weekend's £2 Free Bet

If you place accas or Bet Builder bets worth at least £10, you'll get a free £2 bet to use on an acca or Bet Builder of your choice. Meaning you can obviously use it in this game.

Newcastle have a strong record when it comes to getting plenty of corners on home soil. In 10 games at home so far, they've managed to get over 7.5 corners in seven of them, making the 15/8 on offer on over 7.5 home corners look like very decent value. They're hot favourites to win, should have plenty of the ball here and that should hopefully lead to a fair few corners.

And they should be good for at least two cards here, as well. Their card count for their last six matches reads: 4, 0, 3, 4,1, 2.

The ref in charge, Peter Bankes, averages just over four yellow cards per game this season and showed a red in an EFL Cup match so the 8/15 Newcastle get two or more should land.

The double comes to 4.32.