Newcastle United are back in Premier League action today, facing a trip to Brighton as 11th takes on 12th at the Amex.

It’s a ground we’ve now won at since 2017, but we’ll be hoping to build on recent results after back to back wins over Union SG (4-0) and Nottingham Forest (2-0) before the international break.

Here is the side we’re backing Eddie Howe to select and why ahead of today’s 3pm kick off on the South Coast…

Predicted XI

(4-3-3): Pope – Trippier, Thiaw, Botman, Burn – Bruno, Tonali, Joelinton – Murphy, Woltemade, Gordon.

With Lewis Hall and Tino Livramento both out, we can expect to see Dan Burn at left-back once again. It’s an area Brighton could target, with Yankuba Minteh in form and posing a mismatch from a pace perspective.

However, we have only conceded in two of our seven league games so far this season, and have looked even stronger defensively since Malick Thiaw and Sven Botman began what looks to be a formidable centre-back pairing.

The midfield trio of Bruno Guimares, Joelinton and Sandro Tonali looks here to stay, even if Ramsey will return to the squad, but I do think there’ll be one change in attack.

Anthony Gordon and Nick Woltemade will be hoping to kick on after both scoring for their country this week, although it wasn’t quite the same story for Anthony Elanga, who didn’t start either game for Sweden and struggled in our 2-0 win over Forest last time out.

I think Brighton away could actually suit Elanga’s ability to exploit space on the break, but believe we’ll see Jacob Murphy return down the right after missing out on Howe’s XI over our last two games.