When even supercomputers calculate your team as relegation candidates, a Tuesday evening at Turf Moor suddenly feels like a minor final. Scott Parker’s Burnley, currently in 19th place in the table with just 12 points, go into this Premier League matchday 19 clash against Eddie Howe’s Newcastle, who are mid-table and have fallen well short of their pre-season top-five expectations, although some models still give the team a chance of a return to the top eight. Burnley has picked up just two points from its last five league games, with a hard-fought 0-0 draw at home to Everton providing a defensive lifeline but doing little to ease the pressure, as there had already been too little reward from this phase. Newcastle have also managed just one win in the same period and suffered a 1-0 defeat at Manchester United on Boxing Day, a far cry from the attacking power that Alan Shearer believed the team had in their battle for fifth place. The recent head-to-head record is clear, with Newcastle winning all five of their last league games against Burnley, including a 2-1 home win earlier this month.
- Venue: Turf Moor, Burnley
- Date and time: 12/30/2025, 8:30 p.m.
- Competition: Premier League (Matchday 19)
Newcastle’s injury-plagued defense and recent slump in form make Both teams to score: Yes attractive, especially as Flemming and Anthony give Burnley noticeably more firepower. Added to this is the busy holiday schedule with many minutes in the legs, while Newcastle’s recurring passes from the right side towards Woltemade are likely to create gaps in the long run, which increases the probability of several goals, especially in the second half.
Burnley Form & Record Check
Burnley’s current league form remains fragile. The team is in 19th place with 12 points, just one point behind West Ham but already ten points ahead of Wolves, so the real battle is with their direct neighbors above them. A 0-0 draw at home against Everton followed a 1-1 draw at Bournemouth and interrupted a series of defeats against Fulham, Newcastle, and Crystal Palace, but they still lack the wins to make a sustained climb up the table and remain four points adrift of safety. What is striking is the pattern within the games: in this series, they have not won a single first half or the entire game, but most second halves ended in a draw, and in this phase they have not lost a single game after the break, which suggests late stabilization but too little sharpness at the start. Offensively, their productivity is patchy. Flemming with five league goals and Anthony with four are reliable scorers, but Burnley often create little overall, as the game in Bournemouth showed, where they scored from their only shot on goal. Broja has one league goal and, like Laurent and the now suspended Hannibal, appears in the statistical lists of underperformers. At the same time, defensive instability is weighing on the overall statistics. Humphreys, Beyer, Tuanzebe, and Roberts are all missing, while Foster and Amdouni are unavailable in attack, meaning Parker has to constantly reshuffle both his defense and his offense, and the team’s performances have been correspondingly cautious of late. With only one point behind West Ham, the key task has become to finally turn these tight home games into wins.
Burnley are expected to stick with a 3-4-3, with Dubravka in goal behind a back three of Esteve, Ekdal and Worrall. Walker and Lucas Pires are expected to provide width on the flanks, while Ugochukwu and Cullen form a more conservative central midfield duo, which fits well with their recent, somewhat more cautious approach in the Premier League, although this is still only a predicted and unconfirmed lineup. In defense, injuries to Humphreys, Beyer, and Roberts, as well as Tuanzebe’s international duty, severely limit rotation options, so Delcroix and Hartman are expected to be on the bench as cover in this scenario. Up front, Foster and Amdouni remain unavailable and Hannibal is suspended in the league, so our predicted attacking trio of Edwards, Broja, and Bruun Larsen gains additional plausibility, with Barnes and Flemming as the main alternatives from the bench.
Newcastle Form & Record Check
Newcastle travel to Turf Moor as a classic mid-table team, currently 14th in the Premier League with 23 points and an exactly even goal difference. They are just one point behind Brighton and one ahead of Bournemouth, which highlights how tight their season has been and makes the discrepancy with Alan Shearer’s prediction of a fifth-place finish and Champions League qualification even clearer, putting Eddie Howe under increased pressure. Across all competitions, their recent run is two defeats, two draws, and one win. The defeat at Sunderland and the 1-0 loss at Manchester United exposed familiar problems, with long periods of limited goal threat and a crucial lapse in concentration that was punished. The 2-2 draw at home to Chelsea mixed promise with vulnerability, while the 2-1 League Cup win over Fulham and the 2-2 draw in Leverkusen showed that Newcastle can compete with strong opponents, but without consistently bringing that dominance to the pitch. In the league, they have won just one of five games in December, which is in line with their goal difference. They have conceded at least one goal in each of their last five games in all competitions, an unusual pattern for a team with top-six ambitions, and they have failed to score in their last two away league games, which could indicate fatigue and declining confidence in away games. Tactically, it is striking that Newcastle averages 16.8 crosses per game and has already created 23 chances at the back post, with Murphy’s crosses from the right to Woltemade being the main route into the box. The striker has seven league goals to his name, is becoming more and more of a threat in the air and shows a clear instinct for direct finishes, which Wissa, Gordon and Barnes also benefit from. Bruno Guimarães and Tonali provide additional finishes from the second row, but the absences of Botman, Burn and Livramento leave the defense looking vulnerable and make it difficult to strike a balance between attacking intent and stability.
Newcastle are expected to line up in a 4-3-3, with Ramsdale in goal behind a back four of Hall, Thiaw, Schär, and Murphy, with Thiaw and Schär likely to form the central defensive pairing due to a lack of alternatives. With Botman, Burn, Trippier, Krafth, and Livramento all missing, the defensive options are clearly limited. In midfield, a trio of Tonali, Bruno, and Ramsey is expected to provide a balance between ball circulation and tackling strength. In attack, Gordon and Wissa are expected to support Woltemade on the wings, who is likely to act as the target for Murphy’s crosses from the right. This formation also remains a probable but not yet confirmed line-up.
Burnley – Newcastle Head-to-Head & Statistics
In the last five head-to-head matches between 2021 and December 2025, Newcastle has built up a flawless record against Burnley. Five wins from five games with a total goal difference of 11:3 underline their clear dominance in this fixture, with the venue playing hardly any role, as Newcastle took all three points every time. In December 2025, the Magpies narrowly won 2:1 at home, continuing a series of mostly close but controlled victories. The most convincing result in this period was the 4-1 away win at Turf Moor in 2024. Previously, there had been closer results: 2-0 in 2023, 2-1 in 2022 and 1-0 in 2021, but Newcastle found a way in all of these games. It is striking that Newcastle’s superiority sets in early: they won the first half in all five encounters, scored before the break and did not concede a single goal in this phase. All of Burnley’s goals in this series came after the break, so the hosts were constantly chasing the game. In terms of goals, four of the five games saw between two and three goals scored, with the matches mostly appearing controlled and competitive rather than frantic, the only exception being the 4-1 win in 2024. Overall, the pattern suggests that Newcastle managed these games tactically, while Burnley were rarely able to build sustained pressure to really tip the balance.
