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I've been admiring the snow and watching Mad Men all morning, so I am way too tired from all this excitement to create one of those pretty little charts that typically go at the top of our open threads. Sorry guys -- blame Aaron for his internet being out.
The Magpies are perfect in all competitions thus far in 2012 -- could it be the Villa that manage to end that streak? Or will we see the same humiliation we saw in Newcastle last season? It's been put forward that Newcastle is "almost in Scotland" and therefore we supporters should be optimistic. And no, it doesn't matter that a Scot was leading in that horrible defeat, because it wasn't snowing then. Very well. Here are your lineups:
Newcastle Starting XI: Tim Krul; Danny Simpson, Mike Williamson, Fabricio Coloccini, Davide Santon; Ryan Taylor, Danny Guthrie, James Perch, Jonas Gutierrez; Leon Best, Demba Ba
Newcastle Bench: Rob Elliot, Shane Ferguson, Dan Gosling, Hatem Ben Arfa, Gabriel Obertan, Shola Ameobi, Papiss Cisse.
Aston Villa Starting XI: Shay Given; Alan Hutton, Carlos Cuellar, Richard Dunne, Stephen Warnock; Charles N'Zogbia, Stephen Ireland, Stiliyan Petrov, Ciaran Clark; Darren Bent, Robbie Keane. (arrange these as you like)
Villa Bench: Brad Guzan, Andreas Weimann, Gary Gardner, Barry Bannan, Nathan Baker, Eric Lichaj, Emile Heskey.