Newport County vs Middlesbrough Predictions

No strangers to causing an upset in this competition in recent times, Newport County will be hoping to get the better of higher-level opposition for the second time this season, though they’ll have to perform better than they did in League Two at the weekend. Tuesday’s hosts may be ever so slightly lacking in confidence ahead of this match after losing 3-0 against Grimsby on Saturday afternoon.

Newport may have needed a late, late equaliser for this replay to materialise, but their goals was the least that their performance suggested. When the pair met at Riverside Stadium, Middlesbrough did edge the shot count, but it was Newport who looked more threatening in terms of overall chances created/quality of scoring chances. After all, the League Two team came out of that match with an expected goal supremacy of +1.0, which suggests that they were unfortunate not to come out on top.

Michael Flynn’s men will be buoyed by their performance away from home against Middlesbrough and will thus fancy themselves to do even better at a ground where they’ve made a habit of upsetting higher-level opposition in this competition. Last season, County were good value for their draw against Premier League high-flyers Tottenham, while it’s hard to say that they didn’t deserve to beat Leicester City at this venue in the previous round. On that occasion, Newport defended stoutly, looked a threat going forward and showed all the qualities of a side that wants nothing more than to progress in this competition. Can the same be said for a Boro side that is aiming to reach the play-offs in the Championship this season?

Middlesbrough aren’t an easy side to get the better of; Tony Pulis has his team take a pragmatic approach, which often makes life tough for the opposition. That said, such an approach did them no favours in the initial tie, while given that they create very little going forward, Boro were fortunate to come out on top against West Brom at the weekend. On that occasion, they mustered just 0.42 expected goals for and came out with an expected goal difference of -1.10, which suggests that luck was very much on their side.

Given the way the initial game panned out, it’s surprising that Newport come into this fixture at such a big price. Given the disparity in divisions, the visitors deserve to be favourites, but they’ll have to perform a good bit better than they did against Newport a fortnight ago if they’re to justify what is a very skinny price-tag.

In all honesty, it’s easy to side with the hosts on the ‘Draw No Bet’ market. We know that Newport get themselves up for these big FA Cup ties, especially at Rodney Parade, while they’ve already proved that they can get on top in terms of overall play if Middlesbrough are not at the top of their game. If we combine the fact that Newport have developed a habit of raising their game in this competition at Rodney Parade with the fact that they had the better of the game in the initial tie, then backing ‘Newport Draw No Bet’ is hard to avoid at the current prices.