Saturday Football Tips: Magpies to soar on set-pieces at Palace

• Best set-piece attack v worst set-piece defence

• Schar v Zaha battle looks tasty

• 8/1 Bet Builder and 158/1 goalscorer double!

Much was made of Crystal Palace's poor defending at set-pieces last season.

This term it's not been mentioned much at all, the reason being they've conceded only four goals from set-plays whereas Bournemouth have let in a whopping 13.

Yet delve deeper and the underlying problem remains.

Palace's set-piece expected goals against (SP xGA) figure of 8.08 is the highest in the Premier League.

And given they are facing the team with the highest set-piece expected goals (SP xG) tally in this game, that is bad news.

High-flying Newcastle have serious aerial threat in such situations from Dan Burn and Fabian Schar, who are 14/1 and 11/1 respectively for a goal.

The anytime scorer double pays 158/1 and I just can't resist throwing some loose change at that - namely a quarter of our daily stake.

After all, no side has conceded more home goals than Palace.

However, a more realistic Bet Builder option is to back both men for a 1+ shot - as well as their impressive SP xG figure, Newcastle lead the league for set-piece shots, their total of 106 in 19 games being 20 more than any other top-flight side.

Schar, who also likes a long-range strike, has managed at least one shot in his last nine games in all competitions, a run which includes his games at the recent World Cup, while Burn has landed this in five of his last eight.

To bump the price up, I also like the chances of Schar being shown a card.
I wrote the other day about how many defenders struggle to deal with Wilfried Zaha's dribbling skills - the Palace forward is the most-fouled player (on fouls per game) in the Premier League.

With Schar usually the furthest right of three Newcastle centre-backs, he's likely to be in Zaha's area of the pitch a lot here - the Palace man was mainly on the left against Manchester United in midweek but certainly had licence to drift infield.

While the Swiss defender has slowed down in cards terms, he's still prone to lunging in - see his World Cup appearances - while in the Premier League he's been booked four times this season.

Schar may have been watching his step in the last few weeks, knowing one more yellow would have led to suspension, but the 19-game cut-off point has now passed so he could be off the leash here.

The three legs put together create a Bet Builder which pays just shy of 8/1 - the other three-quarters of our stake will go on that.

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