What are the odds on Benteke and 3 defensive mids starting?

Keep it tight in the first half.
4 across the back defending narrow, let them have space down the wings.
3 holding midfielders.
Roll it around sideways and backwards until you get shut down, then boot it upfield.
Any out ball just give it to Wilf. Who will be double, team, rotational fouling and will have a strop with the ref.
Luka needless yellow card.
Come out after half time half asleep, give up a sloppy goal in the first 15 minutes.
Start attacking but with no real purpose.
75 mins - change Benteke, Tosun, or Ayew, for Benteke, Tosun or Ayew (depending on who starts and who is on the bench).
Give up late second goal, lose 0-2.
Post-match interview: Very pleased, team worked very hard. Unlucky to give up the first goal where we just switched off for a few minutes. Unlucky not to equalise. Second goal was against the run of play. Thought a draw would be a fair result. Difficult due to injuries.
Fans reaction: We are very lucky to have Roy. Other results went our way.
Last on MOTD.
Rinse & repeat.

As we continue our march to the Championship,blame can be placed at Parish's door as he failed to sanction any signings of note in a second abject window.

every now and again a 0-0 comes along that it is waiting to happen, you probably won't get 6-1 odds, but 11-2 is a good price for a 5-4 shot … the formula is this:

team who can't score versus team who don't try to score = 0-0.

that's the head, my heart tells me the game's too important, also our current poor form only really goes back to the 0-2 v Saints where tiredness was visible, with a rest we should have a go, I think we'll do them 2-0, but they could nick another 1-0 just as they did at their place. And we should have Townsend back, and James McCarthy is starting to dominate our midfield which is a good thing, because Luka hasn't bossed it lately, not like he did in his early Palace career, and has been a bit unreliable, be interesting to see if and when the midfield gets reorganised so that McCarthy is the main man - think that needs to happen at some point in the not too distant.

Same ol script for home games and our age old problem is that we don't take our chances and can't score. If they do, we lose 1-0.

The script for those who don't attend Palace home games is ... $od all happens in the first 45 minutes followed by a frantic bit of effort at the beginning of the second half then we close on our backfeet with pointless substitutions.

Denial is not just a river in Egypt

Given that the team that have scored the fewest goals in the PL (23) are playing the team that have scored the second fewest (24), a goalfest on Saturday is highly unlikely! Of Newcastle's 24 goals, roughly half have been scored by defenders.

Before today's game,Newcastle have been quite resolute in recent games only conceding 3 in their previous 4 PL games and we of course struggle to break down any team.

Edited by Willo (16 Feb 2020 7.42pm)