Newcastle United captain Jamaal Lascelles has admitted his side are targeting Chelsea’s inexperience when they travel to Stamford Bridge on Saturday.
The Magpies’ enforcer suggested that Frank Lampard’s side is filled with youthful players that Newcastle are looking forward to testing themselves against after the 1-0 win against Manchester United before the international break.
Lascelles revealed that Newcastle are fancying their chances going into the game after a week full of hard work during training in the two-week layoff.
“They’re a young side with not much experience in there,” he told the official club website.
“We’ve been working really hard this week and we’re looking forward to it. It’s going to be a tough game but we do fancy our chances.”
Chelsea are going into the game with a potential injury headache, with six of their players potentially missing for the game [Daily Mail].
OPINION
The Newcastle camp is clearly full of confidence after the win against Manchester United, and so they should be. They were phenomenal in that victory at St James’ Park, and that will have given them bucket loads of determination to knuckle down in training under Steve Bruce, and potentially travel to London and pick up another three points on Saturday. Lascelles is right to single out Chelsea’s potential inexperience as something they could take advantage of, and the unpredictability in their results so far this season prove that. Lampard’s side have been great at times, but have also come unstuck in certain fixtures. Players such as Tammy Abraham have come in and hit the ground running whereas their defence hasn’t exactly been tight. Should Newcastle be able to stay resolute in defence, and hit their opponents on the counter-attack through the likes of Allan Saint-Maximin, then they could certainly cause huge problems and potentially take another three points from one of the so-called top-six in the Premier League.
