Season 2006-2007

NEWCASTLE UNITED

 v

BIRMINGHAM CITY

Glenn Roeder has confirmed the same side and subs bench that played against Spurs will also start this game. Scott Parker and Emre are being saved for West Ham on Saturday.

                  Given
Solano, Taylor, Ramage, Huntington
Milner,     Dyer, Butt,       Pattison
           Martins, Sibierski

Subs: Harper, Edgar, O'Brien, Carroll, Troisi.

- Michael Owen (knee), as we know, is out till next year with the injury he picked up at the World Cup.
- Shola Ameobi (hip), is out for the season after his hip operations.
- Craig Moore (hamstring), still has no return date.
- Olivier Bernard (hip), is out for the season.
- Stephen Carr (bruised toe), still has no return date.
- Charles N'Zogbia (knee), hopes to be back in early February.
- Titus Bramble (calf), still isn’t ready to return.
- Celestine Babayaro (hamstring), is still out.
- Damien Duff (knee), could return against West Ham on Saturday.
- Emre (groin), is a doubt after missing Spurs away at the weekend.
- Scott Parker (stomach strain), missed Spurs away but should be fit for this one.

My thoughts:

It’s January, it the F.A. Cup, it must be time for our annual dreamland fantasy. We all wanna win something and with winning the league being out the question and given our regular useless form in the League Cup, the F.A. Cup has been our main hope for a number of years.

We may have made hard work of beating 10 men from a lower league, but the thought of a home replay and the reward of another home tie in the next round, already has our minds wandering to trips down to Wembley in the May sunshine.

Newcastle United fans are like lotto players, every week we put $100 on the Saturday draw in the hope that surely we are going to win big at some stage. It’s a matter of the law of averages isn’t it? Over the years we’ve won a quite a few times, $50 here, $250 there and even the odd $1000 but never anything that will keep us going for the rest of our lives. The financial and emotional cost of playing the lotto grows greater every week and year, but the thought of not putting your $100 on and missing out on the big win is even greater.

Our grandparent’s generation had the 3 F.A. Cup wins in the 50s, our parent’s generation had the Inter-City Fairs Cup win in 1969 but our generation (if you are in your 20s or 30s) has had nothing except winning the old Division 2 to get promoted in 1992/93. Surely our time is around the corner?

I suppose all we can do is to keep our fingers crossed when the lotto balls are drawn and dream of what we’ll do with the winnings.
 

HOWAY THE LADS!!!