Game On! Newcastle v Aston Villa

Good afternoon and welcome to the one and only 'Game On' article which this week will feature the visit of Aston Villa to St James' Park.

I know we spannered them 6-0 last season and in some way it compensated for their tw*tish behaviour upon our relegation, but the wounds run deep with me. I know too many Villa fans and not many of them are high on my Christmas Card list so I'd love us to give them another going over.

That's just my personal circumstance though. I'd take three points however they come right now as we have eyes, at least for now, on a bigger prize. That prize being a rather surprise stab at European qualification via the league, and not the Fair Play league either!

A win will take us back into 5th place in the table. A significant win for us and a significant loss for Chelsea could see us in the top four come the end of play today. The maths involved means it's unlikely, but I'll be happy enough with 5th place anyway and a Tottenham victory over Liverpool. That's the ideal world though...

Enough waffle!

If you wish to read yet another cracking match preview courtesy of Shamrock then click here. Alternatively, or supplementary, you can have a look at the numbers involved with another one of NUFC_stats fantastic 'Stat Attacks' by clicking here. They are both well worth a few moments of your time.

The good new for fans not lucky enough to be in attendance today is that the match is live on Sky. For those who don't have Sky there are plenty of overseas channels showing the game so the chances of a stream are looking pretty damn good. Should you happen to stumble across a rather good link please feel free to share it with your fellow NUFC fans and put the link in the comments section below.

That just about wraps it up and now it's up to the boys in black and white to do the rest of talking. Will Demba Ba score on his return? Will Papiss Cisse notch a debut goal? Well we shall soon find out...

Howay the lads!

Newcastle: Tim Krul; Danny Simpson, Mike Williamson, Fabricio Coloccini (c), Davide Santon; Ryan Taylor, James Perch, Danny Guthrie, Jonas Gutierrez; Leon Best, Demba Ba

Subs: Rob Elliot, Shane Ferguson, Dan Gosling, Gabriel Obertan, Hatem Ben Arfa, Shola Ameobi, Papiss Cisse

Aston Villa: Shay Given; Richard Dunne, Carlos Cuellar, Stephen Warnock, Alan Hutton; Stiliyan Petrov, Ciaran Clark, Charles N’Zogbia, Stephen Ireland; Robbie Keane, Darren Bent,

Subs: Brad Guzan, Emile Heskey, Eric Lichaj, Nathan Baker, Barry Bannan, Andreas Weimann, Gary Gardner