Newcastle United welcome Everton to St James' Park on the final day of the Premier League campaign this Sunday with Champions League qualification still up in the air.
The permutations are simple for Eddie Howe's men, win, and Champions League football will be theirs, but any slip-ups make it difficult to see how the Magpies will get in.
Match preview
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In the tightest race ever for continental football, five teams still have the chance to qualify for the Champions League on the final day, with Manchester City big favourites to make it, while three clubs are level on points.
Newcastle are one of those sides, with Chelsea, Nottingham Forest and Aston Villa waiting to pounce on dropped points from any of the clubs in the hunt for the top five.
A narrow 1-0 defeat at Arsenal last weekend means the hosts will be sweating over their final league position here, in what was just a second defeat in 10 games.
A draw for Newcastle at St James' this weekend means one of Chelsea or Forest are guaranteed to finish above them, as they play each other, so Howe will be looking for a favour for Manchester United, who would need to stop Villa winning.
Should Everton grab an unlikely victory here though, then Villa would only need a point at Old Trafford to leapfrog the Magpies, illustrating just how delicate the race is for those highly-sought-after places.
Newcastle are heavy favourites to make it in though, with Opta rating their chances at over 80% to finish in the top five, and that is largely thanks to the fact they have won six consecutive Premier League home matches.
The Magpies are also strong finishers, having won a whopping eight of their previous 10 final-day encounters, but the last time they faced the Toffees on the final day, there was heartache.
Newcastle found themselves in a similar, but not as strong, position at the end of the 2011-12 season when travelling to Goodison Park, knowing a win and a Tottenham Hotspur slip up would see them finish in the top four, but they were beaten 3-1 by David Moyes's men.
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Moyes will be looking to improve Everton's fortunes in this fixture, because they have taken just one point from their last four trips to St James', after a run of six wins in nine between 2011 and 2019.
Everton's most recent visit went well though, as they soaked up plenty of Newcastle pressure before snatching a late point through Dominic Calvert-Lewin's penalty, and there was more drama from 12 yards in the reverse fixture in October, when ex-Everton man Anthony Gordon was denied by boyhood Sunderland fan Jordan Pickford.
There is not quite as much riding on this for the visitors, who are guaranteed to finish 13th no matter the result, but they do have the opportunity to end a season with three straight wins for the first time since the 1980s if they take all three points here.
An impressive come-from-behind win at Fulham was followed by a routine 2-0 success over Southampton on their Goodison goodbye last weekend, as an emotional crowd gave the Grand Old Lady the send off it deserved.
There are fears Everton could be mentally checked out after that occasion, and they are often poor on the final day, with just one win across the last eight seasons, but that was arguably the biggest in their recent history, beating Bournemouth in 2023 to avoid relegation.
Team News
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Alexander Isak was left out for Newcastle at the Emirates last weekend with Howe citing muscle stiffness as the reason, but knowing that they can still get the job done here, that was likely a precautionary measure ahead of this clash.
Even if Isak missed out though, there would not be many visiting fans surprised to see Callum Wilson come in to score his first Premier League goal of the season, as he has eight career goals against Everton in 10 appearances.
Kieran Trippier is another player fighting to be fit after sustaining a minor calf strain earlier this month, but there will be no place for injured trio Lewis Hall, Joelinton or Matt Targett in this one.
While Jake O'Brien returned from a brief absence last weekend, Everton lost Jarrad Branthwaite to a hamstring injury, the same issue that ended James Tarkowski's campaign a few weeks earlier, so Michael Keane is set for another start on the road, after a stoic performance at Fulham.
There has been some murmurs that Pickford may be left out of this encounter given that Sunderland are in the playoff final a day earlier, but the north-east native would be more determined than any in the Everton team to stop Newcastle from sealing Champions League football.
Captain Seamus Coleman may well have played his final game in professional football after being forced off with a thigh strain inside 20 minutes last week, and he will be sidelined here along with loan duo Jesper Lindstrom and Orel Mangala.
Newcastle United possible starting lineup:
Pope; Schar, Botman, Burn; Murphy, Bruno Guimaraes, Tonali, Livramento; Gordon, Isak, Barnes
Everton possible starting lineup:
Joao Virginia; Young, O'Brien, Keane, Mykolenko; Alcaraz, Gueye, Garner, McNeil, Ndiaye; Beto
We say: Newcastle United 2-0 Everton
Newcastle have been reliable in the big games under Howe, and this certainly falls under that category, with the hosts fully expecting to get over the line and finish in the top five.
Everton have nothing to play for and the emotional toll of last weekend's Goodison farewell may signal the end of their campaign one week earlier than most.
For data analysis of the most likely results, scorelines and more for this match please click here.
Andrew Delaney
