Boro (a)

Habib Beye makes his maiden journey to the intoxicated wasteland that is the Riverside Stadium. We go there in search of our first away win of the season, at the wrong end of the table having dropped back into the bottom three following Wigan's victory at home to Everton on Monday night.

A gutsy “backs to the wall” performance last week allowed us to gain a valuable and unexpected point against Chelsea but having thrown away 2 points against Wigan the previous week, we need to be looking for a victory against Boro to make that point worthwhile.

Last seasons fixture was a game in which we gave away the lead on two occasions, in the end having to settle for a point. The toon fans were labeled vile and Islamophobic by some quarters of the press for directing abuse at Mido (The songs were actually related to his uncanny resemblance to the failed shoe bomber Richard Reid) after he quite visibly gestured to the crowd. Fat Mike was part of that crowd in his Alan Smith shirt, back when they were both still popular.

A different type of performance is required to last week as we need to go looking for the win. Boro have been a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde club this season and we need to make the most of our good recent form against them on Saturday. We expect a similar team to the one that started at Chelsea however we expect different tactics and instructions from the manager.

Kinnear needs to get the lads doing shuttles in the Tyne tunnel to acclimatise to the conditions and then the Smoggies will hopefully be there for the taking.

Beyewatch prediction: 1-2


Newcastle based mystic Dean 'Midas' Maynard says 1-1