Game On! Newcastle v Cardiff - FA Cup 3rd Round

Up for a cup? Good afternoon all, and welcome to this special 'Game On' article which will take us through the start of what is hopefully a decent stab at trying to win some silverware.

The visitors today are Cardiff City who will travel to the North-East with their 300 fans in tow hoping for a first win for new boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer in this FA Cup 3rd round encounter.

However United will want to progress themselves and although the domestic cups are "not a priority" according to the hierarchy at the club, I do feel that at pitch level those words are lost and that the manager and players want to be professional and try to win a trophy. After all, that is the point in football isn't it?

The early team news is that Fabricio Coloccini, Yohan Cabaye and Mathieu Debuchy will definitely miss the match through injury and suspension whilst Tim Krul is doubtful. Official team news will be published shortly after 2pm and can be found at the bottom of this article but in the meantime why not head over to the match preview and immerse yourself in some history of the fixture along with aforementioned injury news and some possibly inane rambling from myself.

The bad news is that there are a lot of games today and ours isn't exactly top of the bill and so isn't being advertised as being broadcast anywhere here in the UK or overseas. However there is still a slim chance that there may be a stream available so if anyone does find one then please feel free to leave a link to it in the 'comments' section below.

It just feels to me as though the FA Cup has been devalued somewhat in recent years. It used to be THE cup to go for but at the end of the day I guess money talks and the serious money is no longer in the domestic cup competitions.

However as I said in my preview, we are surely ideally placed to have a go at bringing the fans some success? We aren't going to get relegated and we aren't going to finish much, if any, higher than we are now in the league so why not go for it. With some intent and a bit of luck why can't we go far?

Howay the lads!

Newcastle:Elliot; Santon, S Taylor, Yanga-Mbiwa, Haidara; Tiote (c), Anita; Ben Arfa, Sissoko, Gouffran; Cisse

Subs:Alnwick, Dummett, Williamson, Obertan, Sammy Ameobi, Shola Ameobi, Remy

Cardiff:Marshall; McNaughton, Hudson (C), Turner, John; Whittingham, Kim, Gunnarsson, Cowie; Odemwingie, Cornelius.

Subs:Lewis; Caulker, Campbell, Brayford, Smith, Noone, Conway