Newcastle aim to continue their unbeaten start at home against an Aston Villa team who have won their past three away matches in all competitions.

BBC Sport examines some of the key themes going into their meeting at St James' Park on Saturday.

"Not good enough in both boxes," was how head coach Matthias Jaissle described Newcastle's disappointing loss at Coventry City on Monday, but it is perhaps his side's defensive issues that deserve the greatest attention.

Defeat by the Sky Blues was the second successive away game in which Newcastle have conceded four goals, following the 4-1 loss at Leeds United in September.

The Magpies have conceded 13 Premier League goals this season, their third-most in their first six matches, after 1999-00 (18) and 2021-22 (14). They went on to finish in 11th place in both of those campaigns.

And while their may be a degree of reassurance in returning to St James' Park, where they are unbeaten so far this season, to take on Aston Villa, vulnerability has also been a recurrent theme on home turf prior to Jaissle's arrival.

Newcastle have gone 12 consecutive Premier League games without a home clean sheet, their longest such sequence in 27 years.

The positive for home supporters is that this weekend's visitors are suffering from their own surfeit of defensive lapses.

Villa have conceded 11 goals in six Premier League games this season, their most at this stage of a top-flight campaign since 1986-87, when they eventually finished bottom.

Unai Emery's side, though, have improved in recent weeks, with the 6-0 win over Fenerbahce in the Champions League on Wednesday extending their unbeaten run to four matches.

They also won for the first time away from home in the Premier League this season during their most recent outing at Tottenham, when midfielder John Manzambi scored his first goal for the club since joining from Freiburg in a club record £51.2m in the summer.

Manzambi also scored in Europe in midweek and there would be no small sense of irony should he add to that tally on Tyneside on Saturday. Newcastle reportedly agreed a fee for the 21-year-old Switzerland international before he opted to join Villa as Morgan Rogers' replacement in July.