Wigan Athletic 2 - 1 Newcastle Utd

Ah, the annual festive ritual: picking over the bones of the Christmas turkey and then picking over the bones of another miserable Boxing Day defeat. Given the catalogue of misery recorded in the history books and the four defeats we’d suffered on our four previous visits to the JJB, the fixture computer’s Christmas gift of a Boxing Day trip to Wigan was about

Team news ahead of Sunday’s Premier League match.

Merry Christmas from us at Black & White & Read All Over. Enjoy your day - after all, our annual 1-0 defeat at the JJB is just around the corner…

So the wait is over, kind of: Little Saint Mick’s staying - for the time being.

The good news is that the man whose goals kept us up last season has “no intention of leaving Newcastle United in the January transfer window” and remains “committed to ensuring the club ends the season on a high” - which at the moment, mindful of how tight the bottom of the league is and knowing our own capacity for

Who are they? For me, one of them has been proved very usefull and has set his heart to build very well relationships with the Toon Army, while the other one is struggling to prove what he can do and set a reasonable ambition of his own.

I have read from the Journal today about our best player on the Spurs game last Sunday, Charles N’Zogbia has expressed (again) his desires to leave Newcastle United for…

Newcastle Utd 2 - 1 Tottenham Hotspur

At long last, a precious three points at home lifted us back towards the relative security of mid-table.

Goals from Charles N’Zogbia, and a last gasp winner from Damien Duff were sufficient to overcome a Spurs side whose only goal inevitably came from one-time Toon target Luka Modric.

With Ameobi replacing Martins in the starting line up, with the Nigerian

A tight game that developed into a midfield slugfest, with neither keeper having a whole lot to do. Without ever reaching the heights as a football spectacle, it was actually an absorbing contest. Of course, the fact we nicked it at the death now makes it seem a lot more memorable than it probably was!

We never established control in midfield, and had to work our gonads off to keep a foothold in the game. Credit…

If the result from our last meeting with them on the Carling Cup was to compare with today’s result, I can tell you that today we are the much-much better team against a (slightly) better Spurs team.

Although we aren’t the better team on fist-half against the team that according to history was the team that would find it hard to win at our own land, but the Lads showed great determination to win the sixth…

“Joe’s the man to do the job. He’s my hero. Is he better than Capello? Definitely.”

Mike Ashley’s clearly either too much in the charitable Christmas spirit, or he’s been at the Christmas spirits.

Interesting, then, that while he’s been bigging up JFK, the latter has for his part been busy reminding his boss that he won’t be dictated to when it comes to transfers: “But I’ll certainly identify

“Allardyce and Rovers: it is an intriguing proposition and it should make for fascinating viewing.”

Fascinating viewing for who exactly? The BBC’s Paul Fletcher obviously has everyone except Blackburn fans in mind. And just when those poor Lancastrian unfortunates really needed some Christmas cheer.

In other related news, congratulations to Blyth Spartans for their FA Cup replay triumph against