Stoke v Newcastle - Premier League match preview.

Newcastle head to Stoke on Saturday afternoon for what is likely to be a battle at The Britannia between the two sides.

Stoke have earned a reputation of being a physical side who rely mainly on set piece goals and winning the second balls and knock-downs. It isn't pretty, but it's certainly effective and means that they currently sit in a league position that is not too different to our own with only the two points separating the two sides.

The home to the "loudest fans in the Premier League" will also be the temporary home to 3,000 or so of the travelling Toon Army which will include, from what I know of anyway, myself, Marktoon, Jay Jay, Dan4toon, Davidtoon4life, AndrewNUFC, Shrews mag and probably a fair few more from the blog who I may have missed.

Stoke will be without John Carew for the match tomorrow as he nurses a back injury whilst former Magpie Abdoulaye Faye is rated as doubtful as he is suffering from a hamstring injury. Mamady Sidebe is definitely out, as he has been for sometime, although The Potters will be able to recall Asmir Begovic after he missed their FA Cup game with West Ham last week due to illness.

Coincidentally, to take a look at the last team that Stoke managed to put out in the Premier League you have to go back a couple of weeks to their last match, which was also against West Ham. They lost that game 3-0 and they lined up with a team sheet consisting of;

Stoke: Asmir Begovic, Mark Wilson, Robert Huth, Ryan Shawcross, Danny Pugh, Jermaine Pennant, Rory Delap, Dean Whitehead, Glen Whelan, Jonathan Walters, John Carew.

Newcastle are carrying an awful lot of injuries at the minute, although to be fair it's mainly injuries to three players that are causing us the real issue. Jose Enrique, although not officially confirmed yet, looks set to miss out whilst Joey Barton will undergo a late fitness test to see if he can feature. Jonas Gutierrez is also officially doubtful although he has thanked the medical staff for his quick recovery via his Twitter account. Make of that what you will...

The likes of Stephen Ireland, Hatem Ben Arfa, Dan Gosling and Alan Smith are all still injured of course, so any further casualties tend to hit us pretty hard. It was against Everton the the two latest injuries (Jose and Jonas) occurred. We lost that match 2-1 and lined up with a team of;

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

Obviously there will have to be some changes to that line up due to our injuries, so I'd put Lovenkrands on the left and play Nile Ranger or Shola Ameobi up front with Leon Best for a start. If Joey Barton is fit then it will be a right side made up of him and Simpson, and as for left-back it's a toss up between either Jonas Gutierrez (in the unlikely event of him being fit), Shane Ferguson or James Perch.

Stoke are looking to do the double over us, which is something that they have failed to achieve since the 1970/1971 season. With an unbeaten home record in 2011 that statistic could become a reality come 5pm Saturday afternoon.

Expect an aerial bombardment from Stoke as not only do they throw the ball into the box from any position possible, they have also played 44% of passes into the final third of the pitch, which is the highest figure in the top flight this season. HOOF!

Kevin Nolan and Cheik Tiote are both one yellow card away from two game suspensions as they are both on nine bookings for the season. Another yellow tomorrow would see the pair miss the visit of Wolves and the trip to Aston Villa.

Newcastle have drawn five of the last eight games, but they have have only tasted defeat twice in 2011.

All in all I'm personally not holding out much hope for tomorrow. To me success would be a point and a decent performance as well me avoiding any kind of trouble. It finds me, honest!

I gave up predicting a while back, mainly because I'm crap at it, but I honestly can't see anything else other than defeat. If we had a few more first choice players available then maybe my expectations would be a bit higher, but all I expect from the dump that is Stoke is a few beers and a train ride home with nothing to show for it.

Howay the lads!