Tottenham v Newcastle: Spurs simply must be backed here

Newcastle’s influx of French stars have brought about an immediate upturn in fortunes and the things teams can achieve in football with the wind in their sails regularly defies probability, still, those backing the Toon to return from White Hart Lane with another three points in the bag are being a touch too cavalier with the bank balance.

Alan Pardew’s men are 4/1 to claim the spoils for the third match in succession, though Tottenham’s 4/6 is the far better value price and, if one was determined to risk their life savings on any bet this weekend, this should be it.

The old adage states plainly enough that you can only beat what’s put out in front of you and, credit to them, that’s exactly what Newcastle did in their previous two outings. It has to be said, however, that both the sides who they bettered – Aston Villa and Chelsea – were chronically out of form and that much can’t be said of Spurs.

The north Londoners haven’t lost a league game in nine, winning five of them, and have been on hand to cash in when the Toon Army have made recent visits. They spanked them 5-0 in this fixture last term and won the two before that without conceding a goal too.

A Spurs clean sheet this time around can be backed at 6/4, though there’s little point backing this when stapling a win to a home team shut out almost doubles the odds to 2/1.

Newcastle’s win at Villa on their last venture from home represented the first time they’d beaten a team on their own patch in all competitions this term but, prior to this, they’d lost seven from eight on the road and failed to score in half of them.

Of these seven losses, they shipped at least two goals in each of them and an astounding 11 were conceded in the two games against teams in the current top half of the Premier League.

These factors indicate that putting faith in Spurs to notch more than 2.5 goals at 2/1 might be where it’s at here.

All odds and markets accurate as of publication’s time and date