Two teams looking for their first points of the season will be clashing on Saturday at Cardiff City Stadium where newly-promoted Premier League side Cardiff take on Newcastle United. The two teams have not met since the 2016-2017 season, both were playing in the Championship at the time and only Newcastle managed to get promoted at the end of that campaign. The Magpies have won their last three matches against Cardiff and six of the last seven in all competitions. Cardiff have not won a home match against Newcastle since 1981.
Cardiff started their season with a 2-0 defeat at Bournemouth last weekend and they couldn't have hoped for much more since they only produced one shot on target in the whole match. Bournemouth even missed a penalty kick in the first half. Kenneth Zohore missed last weekend's match due to a groin injury but he should be able to make his return to action on Saturday, while Harry Arter will be available as well after having missed last week's match against his parent club. Aron Gunnarsson has returned to training following a knee injury but he will most likely need more time before he will be thrown into action.
Newcastle had a tough match in the opening weekend of the Premier League season as they hosted Tottenham at St James' Park, but they were probably hoping for a better result. The Spurs won 2-1 after Joselu had made it all square for the Magpies just three minutes after Jan Vertonghen had opened the scoring for Tottenham. However, Newcastle played pretty well in that match and deserved a draw. DeAndre Yedlin picked up an injury during last week's match and is set to miss out on Saturday, while Florian Lejeune remains out for quite some time. New signing Federico Fernandez missed last weekend's game as he had just arrived at the club but now he should be ready to play.
Probable line-ups:
Cardiff: Etheridge - Peltier, Morrison, Bamba, Bennett - Murphy, Ralls, Paterson, Hoilett - Reid - Zohore
Newcastle: Dubravka - Manquillo, Lascelles, Clark, Dummett - Ritchie, Diame, Shelvey, Kenedy - Ayoze Perez - Rondon
My prediction: Newcastle to win 1-0, Cardiff seem too weak for the Premier League and definitely weaker than the Magpies at the moment.
Here are the odds for the match at Bet365:
Cardiff win - 3.00
Draw - 3.10
Newcastle win - 2.45
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