Game On! Newcastle v Aston Villa

Game On at St James' Park Twas the match before Christmas, where we'll play Aston Villa. Three points are on offer, let's hope it's a thriller.

Ok ok I'm really bad at poetry but I'm just trying to get into the festive spirit of things so forgive me.

One thing however that would help keep the festive mood ticking along nicely would indeed be another win and another three points to extend our winning run to a third game.

But, as always seems to be the case, you can never feel assured of anything when United are involved. 

The last two games have come when nobody expected us to get anything. The pressure was off if you like and, credit to everyone at the club, they responded. 

But this one is different. Villa will look to make us break them down and try to frustrate us while the impetus will be on us to attack which in turn will potentially open up space on the counter.

Those are just my thoughts anyway...

Early team news, injury updates for both sides, a look at the history of the fixture and some fun facts and stats can be perused over in my match preview which went live yesterday and can be viewed here.

For the actual team news you'll have to take a look below about an hour before kick-off where I will add it as soon as I physically can. For streaming links take a look in the 'comments' section below.

There's been a lot of talk of mentality this week and how it has changed at St James' Park. We shall soon see if those are words of meaning or words of emptiness.

Howay the lads!

Newcastle: Rob Elliot; Daryl Janmaat, Chancel Mbemba, Fabricio Coloccini, Paul Dummett; Moussa Sissoko, Vurnon Anita, Jack Colback, Georginio Wijnaldum; Siem de Jong; Papiss Cisse

Subs: Karl Darlow, Kevin Mbabu, Cheick Tiote, Yoan Gouffran, Florian Thauvin, Ayoze Perez, Aleksandar Mitrovic

Aston Villa: Brad Guzan; Alan Hutton, Jores Okore, Joleon Lescott, Leandro Bacuna; Ashley Westwood, Carlos Sanchez, Idrissa Gueye; Jordan Veretout, Scott Sinclair, Jordan Ayew

Subs: Mark Bunn, Ciaran Clark, Kieran Richardson, Carles Gil, Jack Grealish, Adama Traore, Rudy Gestede