As we head towards the first Interlull of the season, a trip to Newcastle provides us a chance to forget about our goalscoring impotence at home. The key team issue is whether or not Laurent Koscielny makes it. He was in the training pictures yesterday but a bad back can be a tricky thing to deal with so there are no guarantees he'll be fit to play. It appears as if Per Mertesacker is going to miss the game through illness. If the regular first choice duo don't make it, then it'll be a repeat of Monday's pairing of Calum Chambers and Gabriel. Obviously there were some scary moments in that first half, but again the manager has backed the 20 year old to come good from that experience...
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