I hate these evening FA Cup kick-offs, especially on a Sunday. The whole atmosphere about the games usually stinks, you’ll have some second-rate Beeb commentators running the show, and more often than not you’ll see your club take a good battering from a team below them in the footballing hierarchy. “Magic of the FA Cup” my arse, not when you’re fortunate enough to support a Premiership team. The only thing this competition inspires in me is fear and anxiety!

It is nice for the real “loyalist supporters” of our beautiful game to get their fifteen minutes though and who can genuinely begrudge some of the giant killings we’ve seen in recent times? Not saying that if Stoke do us over down there it’ll be anything like a giant killing, they probably really fancy their chances with the way we’ve been performing lately, but this game will still mean the world to them.

I, like most, haven’t seen a great deal of Stoke this term (only really when they’ve played Barnsley, Hull or Preston, who I keep an eye on) but they do have a lad who I saw in the flesh a few years back as Preston played Man City at Deepdale banging in the goals for them and who, at the time, I was certain was destined for big things: Ricardo Fuller. He’s just jetted back from his Grandmother’s funeral in Jamaica and what odds on a goal from him in her honour on Sunday evening?

I’m glad to see that previous Premiership lads like Diao, Matteo and Delap look like missing out, all players who know what it takes to beat Newcastle United, but I’m still not at all confident heading down to the Britannia.

It is imeperative that the team and the manager do not let this happen. At the risk of sounding paranoid, everyone is out to get us and have a go at the minute, so lets make sure they’re not given the satisfaction. More importantly, the FA Cup is about all we have left this season. It’s always a rotten feeling going out in the 3rd Round, and if this happens tomorrow, then that’s our season well and truly over. Whatever our feelings about the manager, we must all get behind the team and use the ‘backs against the wall scenario’ as motivation.

HOWAY THE LADS!

I’m sick of it; the crap that is printed in the National newspapers week-in, week-out about Newcastle United; they all want us to fail, well let’s not fall into their hands once again. Let’s show them what we’re made of, and it starts on Sunday evening at the Brittania Stadium.

No matter what your vendetta against the club, no matter what you think of Sam Allardyce or any player that puts on that shirt, no matter what your opinion of Mike Ashley and Christopher Mort; it doesn’t matter.

Everyone is looking for an upset; especially the BBC. They want Big Sam and the Magpies to crash and burn once again, live on National television - well we’re not going to let it happen. We need to WIN this fight, we as fans have taken too much stick this season; let’s stick the criticism where the sun don’t shine.

It’ll be difficult and Stoke City is a difficult place to travel to; especially in the form that we are in at the moment. We need to treat them in the exact opposite way we treated Derby, because they could end up doing to us what Derby did. We need to go there, control the game and most importantly, WIN.

Let’s stick two fingers up to the BBC, to the National press, to the world; let’s not give them the upset that they so dearly crave. We are Newcastle United and United we shall remain. Despite our poorly performing players, our failing manager and our booing fans, if we all pull together, we could still make something of this failure of a season.

Let it be different this time…please.