Newcastle United will look to rebound from a deflating Champions League performance and avoid being swept in this season’s Tyne-Wear derby fixtures when Sunderland visits in Sunday’s early kickoff.
The Magpies (12-12-6, 42 points) suffered a 7-2 drubbing in the second leg of their round-of-16 series against FC Barcelona and exited the competition 8-3 on aggregate.
It was a promising performance on Wednesday for 45 minutes, with Anthony Elanga scoring twice before halftime and Barcelona taking the lead for good when Lamine Yamal converted a penalty deep in first-half stoppage time.
“We have a bit of work to do, psychologically, with the players off the back of what was a really strange game to digest and review,” Newcastle manager Eddie Howe said. “I think the players will hopefully have learned from a lot of similar games this season, in the respect of, we’ve had a crazy group of games where we’ve had to leave one game very quickly and focus on the next. That’s a skill, I think, to be able to park it and move onto the next one.”
That loss followed a promising 1-0 league win at Chelsea last weekend in a match decided by Anthony Gordon’s early goal, a result that took Newcastle up to ninth in a crowded mid-table and two points above 13th-place Sunderland.
The Magpies will continue without captain Bruno Guimaraes and defender Fabian Schar, who won’t return from injuries until at least after the international break. Attacker Sandro Tonali is questionable after he was forced off early in Barcelona.
Sunderland (10-10-10, 40 points) earned a 1-0 victory on Dec. 14 in the first league fixture in this derby in 10 seasons on the strength of a 46th-minute own goal.
That was one of nine clean sheets Regis Le Bris’ Black Cats have kept in their return to Premier League competition, a trend that has them realistically safe from relegation with eight matches to play.
And Le Bris said he expects a similarly testy occasion as his side chases its first sweep of the fixture since the 2014-15 season.
“We have the foundations, the game model. But you have to manage the expectation,” he said. “You have to have the margin in your brain to be ready. If you overload your brain, it will be much harder to manage.”
Sunderland has scored only four times in its last eight across all competitions while dealing with a growing injury list.
Enzo Le Fee, who has four goals and four assists in league play, is among the half-dozen players questionable for the encounter.
–Field Level Media
