In a rousing build up to the game, Alan Pardew has stated that ‘everything points to Manchester United winning’.

News today of a Moussa Sissoko injury with the player himself sending a message via Twitter to say he’ll miss the next 2 or 3 weeks.

It is a case of ‘Friends Reunited’ as Alan Pardew meets up again this Saturday with referee Kevin Friend who officiated at the ‘Headbutt’ showdown.

Alan Pardew has come up with some great logic as to why it’s nailed on that Newcastle give Manchester United a really ‘difficult’ game.

I can’t remember much about the game but I know it ended 1-1 and the crowd were incredibly noisy, I also was fascinated by the peanut seller shouting, “peanuts, tanner a bag”. To a small kid, the players were huge and I was sat on the little wall around the cinder track in the enclosure next to the corner flag, under the stand.

So you can snatch titles from us, you can call us a wee club, you can beat us time and time again and you can burden us with Gabriel Obertan! But the Premier League won’t be the same without you that’s for sure. So long Fergie, maybe it’ll be Manchester United who will only record 7 wins over the toon in the next 50 games…

When Cabaye is alongside him and other players are ticking, then Cheick Tiote is almost always at least very good, at other times class. We need to get more quality players alongside him, rather than think about getting rid of one of our best players.

A real marker of exactly where Newcastle United are currently at, is maybe best illustrated by the club’s performances against one particular opposition. I’m not just talking about the first…

Xisco couldn’t repeat his hat-trick adventure as Manchester United reserves/under 21s visited Tyneside last night.

First club reply said if he’d turned up before half-time then box office would still have been open and they could have sorted it out…which missed the point…he turned up just after half-time!