Newcastle face Brentford at St James’ Park live on Sky Sports on Saturday, with kick-off at 5.30pm. This should be an exciting encounter in the Premier League and below we’ve put together a #PickYourPunt to try and find some value. 

Team news:

Joe Willock has suffered a setback in his recovery journey and will now be out for a further four weeks. However, Sven Botman could feature after missing the game at Man City and the games during the international break. Meanwhile, Josh Dasilva is still out for Brentford, as is Shandon Baptiste. 

Draw 

Newcastle have only won once this season after defeats to Man City, Liverpool and Brighton and they are yet to hit the heights of last campaign. They have a trip to AC Milan to look ahead to in the Champions League in midweek, and this Brentford fixture will give them a tough test ahead of that. 

The price for them to win this match, just 1/2, feels incredibly short given they are yet to win so far this season. We’ve seen them collapse on home soil to ten-man Liverpool and they were way off it last time out against Brighton. Expecting them to turn over a quality outfit like Brentford feels a little presumptuous. 

The Bees are currently unbeaten, but have drawn three of their four matches so far. Goals have been easy to come by even without Ivan Toney, as they drew 2-2 with Bournemouth and hit three against Fulham. They’ve looked good so far this term, and there’s no reason to think that they can’t go and get something at St James’ Park. 

Callum Wilson to score first

Newcastle haven’t been able to impose themselves on the opposition over the past three matches, but against Brentford they should be able to have some attacking influence. With the St James’ Park atmosphere, they will want to get off to a flying start and as a result, they should come out of the blocks quickly. 

The man we want to back is the forward who scored last time out against Brighton. Callum Wilson is yet to be given a start this season, but he has scored twice from the bench. Importantly, we are backing him to start this match and score first as he hasn’t been selected by England this time around. Meanwhile, his competition Alexander Isak has started two tough qualifiers, with the game against Austria only taking place on Tuesday night. 

As a result, Howe is more likely to lean towards Wilson to start this game, given he will have been able to work with him over the two weeks, and he will be fresh. That in turn gives us extra value on picking him to score first.