Premier League: Newcastle vs Crystal Palace match preview

A look ahead to Saturday’s Premier League clash at St. James’s Park

Neil Warnock wants to bring in three or four new players after taking over at Crystal Palace (PA)

Will the chaos finally start to settle? Neil Warnock has been appointed manager of Crystal Palace tasked with steadying the ship that was rocked by the departure of former boss Tony Pulis and further battered around by the scandals enveloping the departed director of football, Iain Moody, and prospective manager Malky Mackay.

This is his second stint as Eagles’ boss and he’ll hope it’ll end in happier circumstances than his first. Although he took Palace to the Championship play-off semi-finals in 2008, he swapped for QPR with the club in administration and having been deducted 10 points.

Crystal Palace will be happy to get out of London and up to the north east. Their opening two fixtures have been London derbies and they were beaten in both, falling to a late winner at Arsenal and conceding three at the hands of West Ham.

Newcastle have had a similarly winless start to the campaign and, more worryingly, it has also been a goalless start. The performance against City was encouraging and it was no disgrace to lose 2-0 but they failed to build on the promising signs and endured a goalless draw at Villa which indicated a lack of firepower. Siem de Jong had a lively 20-minute debut and boss Alan Pardew will hope he can provide some incisiveness, possibly handing him a starting berth on Saturday.

Alan Pardew says Newcastle 'absolutely dominated' and deserved to win against Aston Villa (Getty Images)

Both sides in were in action midweek and both advanced to the third round of the Capital One Cup with victories over lower-league opposition. Both managers rotated heavily for the occasion and will line up on Saturday much as they did the previous weekend. One man who will have other ideas, however, is Palace striker Dwight Gayle, whose clinical hat-trick in midweek may well earn him a spot in the starting XI.

KICK-OFF: Saturday, 3pm

PAST MEETINGS…

Newcastle 1 (Cisse) Crystal Palace 0, Premier League, March 2014

Crystal Palace 0 Newcastle 3 (Cabaye, Gabbidon og, Ben Arfa), Premier League, December 2013

Newcastle 2 (Derry og, Ranger) Crystal Palace 0, Championship, January 2010

STATS…

Palace’s last win against Newcastle came in 1998

Both sides are yet to win in the league this season

Newcastle are yet to score this season

Palace have conceded 2 own goals in their last 3 meetings with Newcastle

Newcastle have lost eight out of their last 10 Premier League games

ODDS…

Newcastle to win: 1.76

Palace to win: 5.7

Draw: 3.8

TV:

Highlights on BBC1 at 10.30pm.