Paul Merson has released his weekly predictions for Sky Sports and has backed Newcastle to beat Everton 2-1 next Monday – feeling Allardyce will be under pressure after the ’embarrassing’ survey their club sent out recently.
Incase you missed it, Everton released a survey asking fans to rate Sam Allardyce’s performance on a scale of 0 to 10 – something that will not have gone down well with the ex-England boss who so many Blues want to see sacked.
As Merson admits we are npw ‘flying ‘after winning four in a row, and he expects Benitez to get the better of Big Sam next Monday – despite stating there’s ‘not much’ between our two sides:
“Newcastle are a funny team aren’t they – they’re flying! Four in a row. They’ve gone to Leicester and beat Arsenal. This is a dangerous game for Sam Allardyce.
“The fans will be turning up expecting to win, Sam will be under pressure to win, and there’s not much between these two teams.
“I’m going for Newcastle to beat Everton. Sam will think it [sending a survey to supporters to rate the boss] is a joke, it’s embarrassing. He’s a former England manager. If he didn’t say what he said he’s still the manager of England, now they’re sending out surveys. I’d expect that when I was manager of Walsall, I wouldn’t expect Sam Allardyce to get that treatment.
“I think they did it last year, but that isn’t the point. They have an England manager, someone who’s been in the game a million years – it’s disrespectful.
“Sam won’t be happy but he’ll just bite his tongue. You don’t want to go steaming in and resigning, especially when you could end up with four or five million…
PAUL PREDICTS: 1-2
So, Merson is backing us to make it five wins on the spin – something which would send us into 9th (leapfrogging Everton) if his prediction proved to be correct.
What do you reckon folks? Fancy us to win?