You can see the pride in Alan Pardew’s eyes when he talks about the great players we have but sounds a note of caution that teams underestimated some of our players early season but that certainly isn’t the case now.

Just like against Bolton the crowd may need to stay with the team as Stoke attempt to frustrate the black & whites, a win today could put Newcastle United in the Champions League driving seat

In last season’s Champions League; Arsenal £24.5m, Chelsea £36.4m, Manchester United £43.3m, Spurs £25.34m. While by comparison in the Europa League, Manchester City and Liverpool were paid €6m each.

If Ashley can get through the summer without selling our best players, changing our shirt colour to red & white and hopefully bring in a few reinforcements, I think most fans (not all) may be able to forgive, if not forget.

This is the business end of the season and all credit to Alan Pardew and his players for putting Newcastle into a position where Champions League qualification is pretty much in our own hands with five matches to go.

Welcome to the latest issue of The Mag which is a Cup Final Special! As Alan Pardew said, Newcastle United had 10 cup finals to round off the season and having won the first 5 we have this special issue reflecting on that brilliant run as well as looking forward to these last 5 (Champions League!) finals.

We also have a special interview with a Manchester United fan, exploring the season so far from both clubs’ perspectives & the excellent ‘In Toon Today’ turns its sights on the visit of ‘Ugly’ Stoke.

Plus features, match reports, ‘Whatever Happened to Croatia Zagreb?’, interviews, ‘Walker Dan’ & our many top columnists including The Corner, Jinky Jim, Boy About Town, Billy Furious, Magpie Moments, Spirit of ’69, And Smith Must Score, Pearson’s World & Gavin Webster Live.

The player in question, Gylfi Sigurdsson, has scored 7 goals in 14 matches since January and also weighed in with 54 shots in those 14 appearances for Swansea

While I actually do really rate Oxlade-Chamberlain, the fact remains he has made only 14 appearances this season, scoring two goals. Compared to the job Tim Krul has done up here it doesn’t come close.

We might have had doubts about our team at the start of the season but the one sure thing was that as usual the fans of Newcastle United would be in a Champions League spot.

In other words, every 52 minutes and 48 seconds we can expect a Cisse screamer to hit the back of the net, a better goals per minute record than any other striker in the Premier League.