Match Preview: Newcastle United vs Wigan Athletic

What are the chances of Newcastle coming good this weekend against us? Well if I was a betting man, I would put money on them doing so. It is just the Wigan luck that we play teams as they start to come good, or that a player who has never scored, scores against us. It’s just what happens.

We can hope that our limping side can pull itself together for their third game in week and get a win in the North-East. A win is a much needed result for Wigan to keep in touch with the teams that are starting to control the mid-table. We want to stay out of the bottom and starting muscling around with the likes of Swansea City and Stoke City in mid-table.

To do that we need to beat teams like Newcastle with their current form.

It will be a challenge, there is no doubt about that. It is unlikely that anyone will be fit in time for the game. Although Gary Cadwell would be the most likely figure to feature if he has overcome his injury. The defender had a fitness test ahead of the City game and just missed out. None else is expected to return from the phyio’s room this week.

I would suspect that the same line-up will start as that which faced Manchester City. None of the starting 11 deserved to be dropped after putting in a fantastic 90 minute shift, where we could have taken at least a point of the champions. A similar performance on Monday night could see us take three points of Newcastle.

They (Newcastle United) go into the game off the back of having only one win in their last six gafmes in the league, having lost their last five. Some of the team you would have expected a side of their quality to beat. Alan Pardew isn't a daft manager and will know its only a matter of time before his team bounce back, its just a matter of when.

Like I said before teams have a thing for bouncing back against us, and I am sure Newcastle will be firing on all cylinders to do just that. Uncharacteristically for Newcastle their defense has been a bit sloppy at times this season. Where last year they were hard to beat and won games knowing teams found it hard to score against them, this year it hasn't been that way.

Yet even still their two Senegalese strikers have managed to score 12 goals between the two of them, which isn't bad going. Both Demba Ba and Papiss Cisse where outstanding for Newcastle last season, and again this season. What the pair haven''t managed though is to both score together. If one of them is in a vein of scoring form, then the other can't score at all.

Sometime that though is just how it works, one player is the workman making the chances, while his partner finishes them. It is always the way of a great double team, for one to make the chances and the other one to finish them. So these two are defiantly going to be a handful for our make shift defense ahead of the game tomorrow night.

Either side could win this, and one side will win this. I can't see it being a draw as both teams look to take advantage of the results that went their way this weekend.