Our first meeting with them at Ewood Park under the previous manager, United were lost 3-1 with Martins scoring for us on that day.
Today, Oba Martins is back for his first game under the Special K. Young defender, Peter Ramage is also on the way for a return to training next week after more than six months out with cruciate ligament damage.
Newcastle will still without Emre, Mark Viduka, Stephen Carr and Shay Given who has the latest groin injury when playing against Manchester Utd last week.
Visitor side will wait for their midfielder David Dunn latest progress to see if he’s fit or not to play after injuring a calf in training. Ryan Nelsen missing with a hamstring problem, but defender Andre Ooijer is ready to make return.
Kevin Keegan will set to make his first win since returning for the second spell as United manager, and as everyone said, this would be our (another) season start if we can win this.
Our home fixtures against them for the last two seasons was not so impressive, but I do hope KK will bring something to cheers us up or we will be in serious danger. In 2006/07 home game we lost 0-2 while in 2005/06 they win 1-0.
Toon skipper Michael Owen said, with just six points above the relegation zone with the visit of Blackburn, the Geordies are in desperate need of a first win since before Christmas.
“But now we’ve got a few games coming up which we can, and should, be winning, and that starts with Blackburn on Saturday which is huge for us.” He added more, “We need to get confidence running going into these games and I’m positive we’ll turn a corner from there.”