The bare bones

And there I was, relieved that Nobby's suspension had been served in time for him to make his second Toon debut against Blackburn on Sunday. For Shearer and Owen to pull the trigger they need to be handed the gun, and Solano was just the man for the job. Hoorah!

Except he's only gone and declared himself unfit to play.

Not exactly the news we wanted on a day that Scott Parker decided an appeal against Saturday's red card would be in vain. Joining Nobby and Parker on the sidelines will be the creative trio of Emre, Dyer and Luque (who's hoping to return to first team action ahead of schedule). That's basically our entire first choice midfield.

Souness will have to pick four from Bowyer, N'Zogbia, Faye, Clark and Brittain - unless he again experiments (unwisely) with Carr on the right hand side. Why is it that all our talented players get hamstring injuries and yet that useless fucker Faye is always fit?

Up front we're hardly blessed with a wealth of options either. There's a chance that Chopra and Ameobi might have recovered from their respective injuries sufficiently to make the bench, but if they don't - to be honest, even if they do - we'll have to pray nothing happens to Shearer and Owen.

And with Lucas Neill and Robbie Savage likely to be lining up against them, that seems as unlikely as the Mackems picking up a point this season.