Magpies v Canaries

Tomorrow night Newcastle United face top-of-the-table Norwich City at home in the EFL Championship. It may only be September, but for me, this is a must win game, or at the very least a must not lose game! If we are to maintain any kind of confidence and momentum we simply can not afford to lose points to the teams above us or we will get cut adrift extremely quickly.

Norwich have been fairly quiet through the summer, certainly in comparison to the magpies and Villa who have attracted the headlines following their relegation from the Premiership. They have just got on with their business quietly and confidently and despite scoring less and conceding more than the magpies, have only lost one game and sit top of the table.

The home game against Norwich last season was a memorable one in which the magpies won 6-2 with Gini Wijnaldum bagging 4 goals. It was somewhat of a false dawn for the club, it came after a dreadful run of results and then all of a sudden we turned Norwich over - was this the turning point in the season? Unfortunately not and it was probably the one and only highlight of last season.

The team that faced Norwich that day has changed considerably and whilst the game last season was between two sides who fully expected to be in amongst the bottom 6 at the end of the season, this time it is totally different. Both clubs will want to be promoted and both clubs are quite rightly chasing the title.

As ever, it is anyone’s guess how we line up. We were poor in the second half against Villa and awful in the home league game against Wolves so I would like to see some changes being made and I suspect they will be given the rotations we have seen this season so far. Rafa seems adamant that we will line up with a lone man up front with a trio behind him but for me, something is just not clicking. There is of course the overriding trust I have in Rafa, he knows the team better than me after all so who am I to question the line up but no one can deny we have been poor recently.

Playing Gayle up front by himself has not worked all that well in my opinion, yes, he has scored goals but he needs support - we need to partner him with someone, anyone. I am sure Rafa’s idea is to have Mo Diame pushing on from an attacking midfield role with the 2 wingers also providing support but quite frankly it is not working - I am not singling Diame out here either, I do rate him but there is just something that is not clicking with this formation. Perhaps this system will take the players some time to become familiar with but we’re well in to the season now and despite impressing in a number of games, I now worry when I see us lining up with 1 up front.

For me, we need 2 up front and that second person does not necessarily have to be Mitrovic. I am a Mitrovic fan and I know he quite rightly came in for some stick following his cameo appearance towards the end of the Villa game but he needs games, he needs a run of games to get his fitness up to the level needed. Yes, he can be an impact sub but I would personally rather Mitrovic was on the pitch than Diame.

That being said, Rafa is unlikely to change his formation - it is a system he has used, and has indeed had a lot of success from, throughout his career so I do expect us to line up in the usual 4-2-3-1 formation. After the poor showing in the second half against Villa there could be a lot of changes made. I have a feeling Matt Ritchie will have done enough to keep his place as well as DeAndre Yedlin (if fit) and Ciaran Clark who I thought had a great game against his old club. There are obviously huge questions over whether Matz Sels will keep his place in the side and of course there is the usual quandary over which combination of central midfielders will play; especially with the return of Cheick Tiote in to the mix.

Regardless of who plays we should have the quality to beat Norwich but the danger is we are playing a side high on confidence, sitting top of the league and nothing really to lose against a Newcastle United side that has look horrendously fragile at home. I have been confident going in to most, if not all of the games this season, home and away but tomorrow’s game has put me on edge a little. I’d like to see us win and win well but I have a feeling it could well turn out to be a nervy draw. I hope they prove me wrong.