Wigan win vital for Newcastle United
Once upon time the mere thought of Wigan coming to St James's Park to play in a Premier League game seemed about as likely as Dennis Wise overseeing exactly which players are signed by Newcastle United.
Now with both unlikely scenarios a reality in the up and down world of the black and whites, the two teams go into a crucial six pointer at St James's Park and the future far from certain on Barrack Road.
Failure to beat Wigan will probably leave United in the bottom three as fans wait to see the response from the trip to Fulham last week.
Victory could amazingly fire United back into the top half yet much of this depends on the consistency of front two Shola Ameobi and Oba Martins, with both strikers finding themselves on target in recent weeks.
Ameobi, who bagged at Fulham, goes into the game eyeing his 50th goal for the club.
But how long can Joe Kinnear continue to leave Michael Owen on the bench?
Regardless of his fitness and regardless of the form of Shola and Martins, the old argument of starting with your best XI now comes in to play.
The Owen factor becomes a bigger problem week by week until a new contract is sorted.
Newcastle can't afford to upset their best player given that a potential departure could also spark unrest elsewhere in the squad with other top players likely to question the direction of the club should Owen head the queue for summer departures.
Getting back to the game, United probably owe their fans a good home win against Wigan especially after throwing it away at Craven Cottage last weekend.
And if Kinnear gets his selection right, that long trip back from Fulham could be a distant memory come Saturday night after a rare 3pm kick-off.
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Lee Ryder - Proudly born and bred on Tyneside, the Chronicle's chief sports writer has followed the fortunes of the club over the last three decades as a Toon fan and football writer.
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Bill;
Great blog! Its well written and has plenty of great information.
I had a question/idea for you. Please shoot me an e-mail so I can give you more details.
Thanks!
Win desperately needed. Don't slag Viduka. We'll never go down with Viduka in the starting line-up. Tell me I'm wrong...
We desperately need a win to get out of the bottom 3. However, it is so close this season with teams in the bottom climbing up the league with a win. With a hard game against Chelsea coming up, I feel we need to be our best. Our recent wins against West Brom and Aston Villa hopefully will give us the confidence today. Good luck Joe and the lads.
Same old thing, ex-player puts one over us...again! You knew it would happen. We cant beat a 10 man team at home whilst leading with just a couple of minutes to go. We are a poor team and the win against villa was probably more down to villa having an off day than us being the better team.
Our defence is a joke and playing ameobi is far beyond me. Ok hes had a couple of better performances but hes no striker, he cant run, dribble or shoot from outside the box. While we have owen here id play him - just to get our moneys worth!
This result could come back to haunt us, I just hope chelsea have an off day and dont go into double figures!