OTF

Cattermole's red face about as bright as his socks

Nolan match ball, and the pure delight continues.

Shola! Good cross from Simpson. Carroll should have buried it, but unselfish as he is shared it our for Shola to belt it away in Geordie style.

PLEASE DON'T SHOW THAT GUY AGAIN. Agree not a red card, but in the context of this game and the yellows from Dowd it was...consistently overreacting.

HAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAH Bye bye Titus Bramble.

Wicked penalty from Shola, unstopable I reckon. Danny Simpson has looked pretty good today. Part of that may be because he's not had to deal with a lot defensively, but he has overlapped nicely and was at the pace of the game from the get go. His passing has been good and he almost got a lovely assist. Was our better fullback for the first half of the half, Enrique's class shone through in the end, marking elmohamady out of the game and off the pitch. Tiote had a slow start, wanted too much time on the ball, but now knows he can't be at all hesitant in this match. Barton has been going well, some excellent crosses and set-pieces, which is where we troubled them first. More of this in the second half please! ...and no more odgy yellows pls Mr Dowd.

Could not have asked for any more. Definition of sheer delight.

Nolan Loving it. Let's keep the sheet clean to the half and finish them mentally.

You beauty!!! That's brilliant from nolan. We're really troubling them with set pieces!! Great delivery from barton

Sky have it as Steven Taylor I think this would be the Sky feed now for the game. Steven in several places, so probably wrong on this (Fox Sports from SKy feed) and it is Steven Taylor.

It's Ryan not Steven on the bench. R Taylor free-kick? There will no doubt be quite a few opportunities from set pieces.

Crowd looks fantastic. Psyched for this!!!

We don't get the same prematch 'analysis' here, but I can just imagine FSA doing all he can to play down/talk down Newcastle under the guise of sincerity but really berthed by bitterness and his self-inflated ego.

Geordie Steven Taylor the secret weapon off the bench?

Have to wonder about their ability to compete in a match that will be high intensity and physical. They offer something different to the players they'd replace, that's for sure. Wonder if Vuckic has snuck onto the bench.

I wonder who we have on the bench? Anyone who could change the match if required?

Awesome

Under 3 hours. Quarter past 10 in the evening here. Expecting to see the exact same lineup from the West Ham game.

Shoosh, I'm trying to give the lad some confidence after all the crap he's read about himself on here the last few weeks. I agree re: CB. Honestly though if he worked on his positioning and didn't push up the pitch so far to escape responsibility he'd be nowhere near the liability that he currently is. Still not good enough though. Keep up the good work Perchie!

I was going to pop an amen on the end of this, but given the direction of the thread maybe not the greatest idea. Talking GPs here - They will give you very general advice from experience, or redirect you in the case that they deem it to be serious. Sports physios see these sort of things all the time and crtiically are closely involved in the rehabilitation process so they will be able to give you a good indication of how bad the injury is, the best excercises to nurse it back, and along the way will be able to let you know if the recovery is going to plan.

Owen: I'm not injury-prone Fresh Setback for Owen Oh, dear.

.. and should say that I thought Perch did ok today. Made some good challenges and interceptions.

Must've been a left uppercut he dished out. I heard he was waving to someone and their face slipped onto his fist.

Commentators were belting on about it before the game. Don't see how this talk could have actually picked up after the win over West Ham, doesn't make sense. The club should have reassured Chris behind closed doors and not entered into this sort of 'discussion' with the press etc. We don't need any distractions ahead of the game on Sunday.

Lovenkrands still has value, but certainly not in games where we're going to be starved of possession and resort to playing long balls. In those sort of games, like he was today he'll be largely anonymous. Routledge actually did some things ok today, beat Ebou nicely with some trickery. His final ball is pretty ordinary, but I'm far from writing him off completely. He does add something different I think, but at the moment it's hard to see that difference having much of an effect on the result. In the end result is the most important thing. Speaking of Ebou, what a diving twat he is.