A trip to Newcastle and no match facts from the BBC

According to the Newcastle head to head page, we’ve lost 53 of the 85 matches we’ve played against them at St James’ Park, only winning 15. That’s not a great record and I suspect it will be tough today too.

We’ve got a big game in Europe and then a big game every weekend and it feels fairly non-stop at the moment. Today will be our third competitive match in a week while this is only the second match for Newcastle after they got spanked at Coventry.

And that spanking at Coventry has put a bit of pressure on the manager if scanning X is anything to go by. That written, I don’t trust the bots on X and every sensible supporter these days knows it takes time for a new manager.

That written and I’ve just got this from Wikipedia, their new manager has only been a manager since 2021 and yes, he’s had quite an impressive win rate, but you’ve got to wonder if Newcastle fans are happy having a manager with zero Premier League experience and is as far from being considered elite as a Championship manager. It’s quite a gamble to take.

But then I have to remember what I wrote in the previous paragraph because you just don’t know these days and managers need to be given a chance. If he can bring his win rate from Al-Ahli to the Premier League, he’ll win the League for Newcastle.

And we never win at Newcastle according to the stats, but if my memory serves me right, we won last time and I think if we play like we did against Fenerbahçe earlier this week we will be hard to beat today.

But there will be changes today and we can’t think every match is going to be like Wednesday. It will be tough at Newcastle and because of that I think I’m going to have to head to the pub to watch the match.

Right, back later and no more match facts from the BBC, but I’m still going to borrow content from them. This might even be better.

News conference lines from the BBC

• Emery confirmed he will decide on his starting XI after training on Friday afternoon, because some players “might be tired” after Wednesday’s Champions League win and he needs his side “to be 100% not 80%” to face Newcastle.

• He took former Wales international and manager John Toshack’s reference “don’t avoid the trees that are not permitting you to see the Forest” when describing the 6-0 win over Fenerbahçe. The Villa boss went on to say they “won a fantastic match, but have a lot of things to improve to make us as strong as possible.”

• On a difficult start, but a convincing European win: “The players are doing a huge effort each match to try to do our demands. We are really improving. We are building the team in the same way we did it three, two and one years ago. The results are [be]coming better.”

• He said 21-year-old Johan Manzambi is “more or less similar” to former Villa midfielder Morgan Rogers, but “with his own characteristics as a player”.

• More on Manzambi: “He’s doing things very positive for the team. He can drive and get the ball. He is getting assists and scoring goals. He is mature, likes football, responsible and a very good example of the mentality that we need.”

• On opponents Newcastle: “At their home it is always very difficult. The supporters are always pushing them. They will be very demanding in how they try to beat us. We must be ready to compete and defend strongly. Be compact and [every player] focused on his task. We need the bench ready to play in case we need fresh legs. It’s a huge challenge.”