Birmingham City will look to cause an FA Cup upset against Premier League opposition on Saturday evening at St Andrew’s. We look ahead to this fourth-round tie with our Birmingham vs Newcastle prediction and preview.
Birmingham vs Newcastle Stats: The Key Insights
- The Opta supercomputer is making Newcastle strong favourites for this FA Cup tie, with the Magpies beating Birmingham inside 90 minutes in 71.3% of pre-game simulations.
- As a top-flight side, Newcastle have been eliminated from the FA Cup by sides from a lower division 32 times – only Everton (42) have done so more in the competition’s history.
- Birmingham City have won just one of their last 15 meetings with Newcastle United in all competitions (D7 L7), a 5-1 away victory in an FA Cup third-round replay in 2007.
Birmingham City host Newcastle United at St Andrew’s on Saturday evening, hoping to secure an FA Cup shock against Premier League opposition.
The second-city club are looking to reach the fifth round of the FA Cup for the first time since 2019-20, but it’ll be a stiff test against a strong Newcastle side. The Blues are winless in their last 10 meetings with Premier League sides in the competition (D2 L8), so they’ll have to end that run if they are to make it through.
Birmingham are flying high in League One this season, though, entering the weekend top of the table with games in hand and a strong chance of breaking some major EFL records in 2024-25. Chris Davies’ side have a real chance of surpassing the 100-point mark this season, with the all-time record in an EFL division currently at 106.
They head into the match on an 18-game unbeaten run – only Burnley (19) are currently on a better run in all competitions among all teams in England’s top four tiers. The last of those wins came in midweek when they defeated Stevenage to reach the semi-final of the EFL trophy. Jay Stansfield was once again the hero for the Blues, as he scored his 17th competitive goal of the season with his winner at the Lamex Stadium on Tuesday night.
The League One side have had to fight through three rounds of the FA Cup to reach this stage of the competition. They defeated Sutton United 1-0 in the first round before a 2-1 win at Blackpool in the second. They got through the third round with a win by the same scoreline at home to Lincoln City, thanks to a first-minute strike from Ayumu Yokoyama and another 13 minutes from time courtesy of striker Lyndon Dykes.
Newcastle had some cup joy of their own on Wednesday night, albeit on a much grander stage. Their 2-0 home win over Arsenal helped them to a 4-0 aggregate victory over the Gunners to reach the 2025 EFL Cup final – their second in three seasons.
Although he didn’t score, Alexander Isak gave the Arsenal defence nightmares and played a key part in the opening goal for the Magpies – his shot hitting the post before Jacob Murphy converted the rebound. Isak needs one more goal to reach 20 competitive goals for the second successive season (25 in 2023-24) after never previously hitting the landmark.
Anthony Gordon sealed the midweek cup win with his sixth goal in his last 10 appearances for Eddie Howe’s side. One of those goals came in the last round against Bromley, where they had to come from behind to defeat the League Two side at St James’ Park – Lewis Miley and William Osula grabbing the other goals.
Having reached the quarter-final last season, Newcastle are looking to reach the FA Cup fifth round in consecutive campaigns for the first time since 2004-05 and 2005-06. Their record against lower-league opposition in the competition may cause some concern, however.
As a top-flight side, Newcastle have been eliminated from the FA Cup by sides from a lower division 32 times – only Everton (42) have done so more in the competition’s history. Meanwhile, only Millwall and Southampton (25 each) have eliminated top-flight sides more often than Birmingham (23) while playing outside the top division themselves.
Influential midfielder Joelinton will miss this match and looks set to be out for at least a month with a knee problem, while Harvey Barnes, Jamaal Lascelles and Sven Botman will also miss out due to injury.
Howe may decide to rest some players following their midweek exploits, with Callum Wilson, Joe Willock and Sean Longstaff potentially coming into the side and Sandro Tonali, Bruno Guimarães and Isak possibly in line for a break from the starting XI.
Birmingham vs Newcastle Head-to-Head
This will be the first meeting between Birmingham and Newcastle since March 2017, when they drew 0-0 in the Championship at St Andrew’s.
Birmingham have won just one of their last 15 meetings with Newcastle in all competitions (D7 L7), that coming in a 5-1 away win in an FA Cup third-round replay in 2007. The last time they defeated Newcastle at St Andrew’s was back in November 2000, when they came from behind to win a League Cup tie 2-1.
Birmingham vs Newcastle Prediction
There have been 11 FA Cup ties between Premier League and third-tier sides since the start of 2022-23, and just one of those ended with the Premier League side being knocked out. That instance was Newcastle at Sheffield Wednesday in the third round in January 2023.
The Opta supercomputer doesn’t foresee any such issues for the Magpies this time around, though. Newcastle won this tie inside 90 minutes in 71.3% of the supercomputer’s pre-match simulations, while Birmingham caused a shock without needing extra-time or penalties in 12.7% of the sims.
Opta Power Rankings
The Opta Power Rankings are a global team ranking system. They assign an ability score to over 13,000 domestic football teams. This score is on a scale between zero and 100, where zero is the worst-ranked team in the world and 100 is the best team in the world.
Ahead of kick-off on Saturday, here is the Opta Power Ranking for both sides.
Subscribe to our football newsletter to receive exclusive weekly content. You should also follow our social accounts over on X, Instagram, TikTok and Facebook.
