By my reckoning this is our first proper home friendly - not including Renfrewshire Cup matches - since 2006. It's a ridiculous situation and hopefully it's not another seven years before we get another one. The quality of the opposition almost makes up for that, with it looking like Newcastle are sending a strong team. We can thank Tommy Craig for this one - his Newcastle links probably being the reason we've got this game while they helped us sign Lewis Guy and a few loan players we'll come on to later. His links also helped us get David Cornell from Swansea so if all he's done in the past two years is get us players and a friendly then he's still done a decent job!
This is our final friendly ahead of the season proper starting on Saturday. The line-up tomorrow will probably give us a fair idea of where the team is at and what sort of side we're going to put out on Saturday. of course, there has to be compromise as we don't want to give too much away and we don't want to get any injuries or suspensions ahead of the big kick-off. This should provide us with a good test though and is easily the hardest game we'll have had in pre-season. And the easier games haven't exactly been going well.
Aside from David Barron and Kenny McLean, who are injured, it's likely most first teamers will get a run out - although Jon Robertson's fitness is still an issue and Christoper Dilo will probably be benched while David Cornell goes in goal. Danny Grainger will get to make his home debut after signing, while Michael Richardson might get another showing as a trialist if his proper club lets him. It'll probably be Steven Thompson up front on his own with Gary Harkins and Gary Teale offering support and Paul McGowan pulling the strings from midfield. If Richardson plays then Jim Goodwin will probably be in defence.
Newcastle provided quite a few folk with some fun during the close season by bringing Joe Kinnear back. He was briefly their manager during their relegation season a few years back, when they stumbled from one disaster to another. Quite why he has returned - this time as director of football - is a mystery and a move that manager Alan Pardew was probably rather unimpressed by. Maybe they think he needs some help after almost taking them into the Championship last season - but Kinnear is more likely to finish that particular job rather than have the Magpies flying up the table!
Newcastle almost have as many of our League Cup winning side at their disposal for tomorrow's game as we do. OK, maybe a bit of an exaggeration, but it's impossible to downplay the part that Conor Newton and Paul Dummett played in our success last season. Dummett set up Steven Thompson for the second goal in the final while Newton bagged the winner, having provided the cross for Esmael Goncalves to open the scoring in the semi-final win over Celtic. It would be a surprise if they weren't involved tomorrow, with Dummett in particular having impressed Pardew during pre-season.
So who else can we expect to see tomorrow? Well, it seems quite a few big names are on their way to Paisley, with the inclusion of Papiss Cisse in particular attracting interest. The striker hasn't been involved much in pre-season after taking issue with the club being sponsored by Wonga - his anger magically disappearing after he was spotted in a casino. Midfield playmaker Hatem Ben Arfa will also play, as will the rather more imposing figure of Cheick Tiote. Other names to look out for include Davide Santon, the large haired Fabricio Coloccini and Frenchman Yoan Gouffran. Not bad for what had originally looked like being the reserve team!
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