Brighton vs Newcastle FA Cup betting preview

Brighton Form: WLDDD

Brighton finished a respectable 10^th in the debut season in the Championship and there were times when they looked capable of achieving a play-off place. This season has seen much of the same Mackail-Smith’s goals taking Brighton up to ninth in the division. Brighton will head into this fixture with great confidence after a 3-0 victory against Ipswich on New Year’s Day. Choose a free bet for this match.

Cup competitions give the players more exposure to the Premier League clubs and putting in a good performance might just put their name in a few managers’ heads. Playing in front of the home crowd, Brighton will look to stay tight at the back and take the game to the opposition and Gus Poyet will believe that they are capable of pulling off an upset. Brighton’s matches have, on average, the lowest number of goals per match in the Championship at 2.44; this means that just over half of their matches have stayed under 2.5 goals.

Newcastle Form: LLLWLL

Newcastle have yet to hit the dizzying heights of last season and may need some January reinforcements to get them crawling back up the table. Over the Christmas period, they were rather unfortunate to score three goals in consecutive matches yet still come away pointless. Leakiness at the back was a clear problem during these two games and they conceded another two goals in defeat to Everton.

Demba Ba had scored 13 goals for Newcastle this season and this is more than twice the tally of his nearest rival and former strike partner Cisse’s tally. Losing Ba will be a big blow but there is enough quality in the Newcastle side to see off a Championship club. The F.A. Cup fixture may see the debut of exciting summer signing Debuchy who Pardrew will hope will add stability at the back and attacking surges wherever possible. Newcastle have struggled at the back on their travels and 60% of their away games have gone over the 2.5 goal mark – largely due to their inability to keep a clean sheet on their travels.

Betting Preview

Cup teams can be rather hard to predict and the outcome of this game may depend on how seriously Alan Pardew takes the competition. All teams want to win the prestigious cup but he may be tempted to field a slightly weaker line up in order to rest players for the league schedule. He will still hope to win the game and the victory could give the team a much needed morale boost. These teams last met in the F.A. cup fourth round last season where Brighton managed a shock 1-0 victory at home.

Kazenga Lua Lua will hope to feature out wide against his former club and attacking at pace may lead to chances for Mackail-Smith up front. Following the departure of Ba, Cisse is now the main man at Newcastle and if he starts he should be expecting to grab at least one goal against the lower opposition.

Newcastle are yet to keep a clean sheet in their away Premier League matches and Brighton will fancy their chances of scoring. However, even with their injury problems Newcastle have enough quality in their squad to fend off a challenge from Brighton. Both teams have the potential to score but Newcastle look likely to win with 2-1 a potential result.

Highlighted Bets
Newcastle to win, 17/10 with BetVictor
Papiss Cisse to score first, 6/1 with SkyBet
Both teams to score, 4/6 with Bet365
Mackail-Smith anytime scorer, 8/5 with Bet365

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Article by Ryan Moore

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