Boltnot (A)

Newcastle travel to see Big Sam's Blackburn in the hope of over-turning the home defeat at St James'. Despite our injuries, one would hope that the Newcastle team would be ready to get one over on their former boss.

Blackburn seem a healthier unit with Sam playing a 4-4-2 formation in recent weeks. It will no doubt be a little while before Sam tries to tinker with the formation, seeing if his players can cope with the negative aspects of 4-3-3 / 4-5-1 / 5 - 5 - 0 !!!

Habib Beye is still missing for Newcastle and morale must be at rock bottom. The players should be in no doubt that a defeat would leave us languishing once again with the relegation battle an ongoing struggle. A win would be a healthy response to the midweek failure in the cup but perhaps 2 battles in 3 days is too much for out paper thin squad. One things for sure, either Big Sam will be Big Smug Sam or we will get revenge for every backward pass and hollow promise throughout his reign.