Birmingham v Newcastle - Premier League match preview.

Newcastle play their rearranged game away at Birmingham City this evening after the original match was postponed due to snow just before Christmas.

It will be a tough match as Birmingham are a strong outfit at home, but Newcastle can cause their own problems if they stick to their own game. I view Birmingham as being similar to Blackburn, so I expect more of the same kind of approach from them as we had from Blackburn just a couple of days ago.

The importance of a result will be magnified by the fact that Newcastle don't play again until the 26th of the month, which gives them 11 days after the fixture against Birmingham to rest and recover, but it's also a long time to wait should we suffer a defeat.

The good news is that Newcastle have suffered no new injuries to any of their players. Danny Simpson will be fit to feature after coming off at Ewood Park due to cramp, but other than that we will have pretty much the same players available as we had at Blackburn.

Hatem Ben Arfa, Shola Ameobi, Dan Gosling, Stephen Ireland, Steven Taylor and Alan Smith are all still sidelined although Ryan Taylor is pushing for a place in the matchday squad after recovering from a long-term ankle injury.

It's up front where we are having problems though, and Alan Pardew has dropped hints about the performances of Nile Ranger that suggest that the young gangstaaaar could be in line for a start. Personally, I don't think it has come to that just yet so I expect that we'll see a front pairing of Leon Best and Peter Lovenkrands again. That will leave us lining up with team looking like this:

Newcastle: Steve Harper, Danny Simpson, Mike Williamson, Fabricio Coloccini, Jose Enrique, Joey Barton, Cheik Tiote, Kevin Nolan, Jonas Gutierrez, Peter Lovenkrands, Leon Best.

Up against Newcastle will be few familiar faces, which isn't good news when you consider that our former players seem to crop up against us and score.

Lee Bowyer, Stephen Carr and Obafemi Martins will be the old boys in the blue kit later on this evening, although Martins could well drop to the bench after the combined effect of his poor debut and Cameron Jerome's impressive cameo role from the bench at the weekend.

Nikola Zigic grabbed an injury time winner for The Blues in their last match against Stoke where they lined up with a team of:

Birmingham: Ben Foster, Stephen Carr, Roger Johnson, Martin Jiranek, Liam Ridgewell, Seb Larsson, Barry Ferguson, Anthiny Gardner, David Bentley, Nikola Zigic, Obafemi Martins.

Newcastle have a surprisingly good record at St Andrews as they have not lost away to Birmingham since 1977, or eight games to be precise. The last four matches have ended in draws.

Birmingham are unbeaten in three games whilst Newcastle haven't won in five, although they have drawn four of those games.

Kick-off is scheduled for 7:45pm UK time, so don't forget to keep an eye on the clock and adjust your time accordingly!

Howay the lads!