STADIUM: St James's Park 

MANAGER: Alan Pardew

LAST SEASON STATS

Premier League: 5th

FA Cup: 4th Round

League Cup: 4th Round

Europe: Did not qualify

Top scorer (all comps): Demba Ba, 16

SQUAD

KEEPERS 1 Tim Krul 21 Rob Elliot 37 Steve Harper DEFENDERS 2 Fabricio Coloccini     3 Davide Santon 5 Danny Simpson 6 Mike Williamson 14 James Perch 16 Ryan Taylor 27 Steven Taylor 31 Shane Ferguson     34 James Tavernier

MIDFIELDERS 4 Yohan Cabaye 10 Hatem Ben Arfa 13 Mehdi Abeid 15 Dan Gosling    18 Jonas Gutierrez 22 Sylvain Marveaux 24 Cheick Tiote 25 Gabriel Obertan 29 Haris Vuckic 49 Gael Bigirimana

FORWARDS 9 Papiss Cisse 19 Demba Ba 23 Shola Ameobi 28 Sammy Ameobi

STAR MAN: PAPISS CISSE

Explosive striker who hit 13 goals in 13 starts for the Toon last season

MIDFIELD GENERAL: YOHAN CABAYE

The French international is the heartbeat of the Magpies

SUMMER TRANSFERS

IN: Gael Bigirimana (Coventry, £1m), Romain Amalfitano (Reims, free)

OUT: Leon Best (Blackburn, £3m), Fraser Forster (Celtic, £2m), Danny Guthrie (Reading, free), Peter Lovenkrands (Birmingham, free), Alan Smith (MK Dons, free) Ryan Donaldson (released), Tamas Kadar (released)

STRONGEST LINE-UP

[GK] Krul

[RB] Simpson

[CB] Coloccini

[CB] S Taylor

[LB] Santon

[RM] Ben Arfa

[CM] Tiote

[CM] Cabaye

[LM] Gutierrez

[SS] Ba

[CF] Cisse

4-4-1-1     Playing style: direct

TOP 3 TWITTER STARS

1 DANNY SIMPSON - 174,733 followers

Follow @dannysimpson

2 DEMBA BA - 127,623 followers

Follow @dembabafoot

3 YOHAN CABAYE - 71,331 followers

Follow @YCabayeofficiel

RATINGS

DEFENCE 6

MIDFIELD 7.5

ATTACK 8.5

OVERALL 7.33

---

No young football fan can afford to go into this weekend without picking up a copy of Match of the Day magazine which includes an in-depth guide to EVERY Premier League club, as well as all the latest transfer gossip, fun-filled cartoons AND the best quiz in football!

www.motdmag.com