Joelinton starts over Lewis Miley, Alexander Isak returns - Predicted lineup to face Forest

Newcastle United are back in action at St James' Park on Boxing Day where they will take on Nottingham Forest.

Forest come into this game with a new manager in the hot seat after they parted ways with Steve Cooper and brought in Nuno Espirito Santo. Hopefully, there's a bit of lag on their new manager bounce.

Newcastle desperately need a good result after being outclassed by Luton Town at the weekend. Another defeat, especially one at home, could turn things a wee bit toxic around St James' Park.

We had some ideas for this one, then we scrapped them

Once again we toyed with a couple of ideas for the lineup: Putting Joelinton on the left and potentially dropping Miguel Almiron or Anthony Gordon, but then we remembered, this is a predicted XI and not a fantasy XI. We have to match what we think Eddie Howe will do, so we've kept it relatively simple.

Goalkeeper

Martin Dubravka - M-Dubz made some good stops against Luton and couldn't really be blamed for the goal either. Although his distribution was poor.

Defence

Kieran Trippier - A much more solid display last time out but we'd still rather see Tino Livramento in for this one to give Tripps a break, but it won't happen.

Fabian Schar - The Terminator who injuries won't keep down will be back in his preferred RCB slot.

Sven Botman - The dynamic duo are reunited with Fabi and Botman both fit again. You love to see it.

Dan Burn - Again, this is Eddie Howe's XI we're predicting so we've gone with BDB when we'd rather see Tino here also. Poor Tino.

Midfield

Sean Longstaff - Lewis Miley is the player in better form, but that won't matter. Longstaff will retain his place.

Bruno Guimaraes - Bruno owes us a good performance after whatever that was against Luton.

Joelinton - We're expecting the Beast to be back. We're hoping he's back. We've missed him too much.

Forwards

Miguel Almiron - Again, because who else do we have right now? Hurry up and come back Jacob Murphy and/or Harvey Barnes.

Alexander Isak - Played the majority of the game on Saturday suggesting he's back to full fitness, and will get the nod over Callum Wilson who has played four in a row now.

Anthony Gordon - He's starting to look knackered, not helped by Moises Caicedo, obviously, but like Miggy, we just don't have the options to rest him.

Kick-off against Forest is 12:30pm with the game being shown on Amazon Prime.

Howay Eddie Howe's Christmas Mags!

All the best from everyone at nufc.news!