Keith Andrews and his Brentford players travel to Tyneside in great spirits.
A 1-0 away victory at Aston Villa last weekend sees them seventh top and only four points off the Champions League qualifying places.
Only the top three in the table have won more Premier League home games this season than Newcastle United.
Keith Andrews talking on Friday ahead of his team playing at St James’ Park: “It is a special place to play football and the fans get behind their team. It’s a cauldron and it can rattle teams coming to town.”
Eddie Howe has seen his Newcastle team win all four home games against Brentford, since his 3-3 draw debut as an NUFC manager, Howe testing positive for Covid and in touch from his hotel room as United threw two points away.
The Brentford boss saying about the challenge for his team on Saturday: “Our players will have to deal with that emotion and the momentum swings in the game and show a level of calmness, composure and growth to deal with whatever is thrown at us.”
Kevin Schade has often done well against Newcastle United but he misses this one, sent off last weekend against Villa.
Keith Andrews: “We are disappointed not to have Kevin and we will miss him for the next two league games and the cup game against Macclesfield. Everyone else has come through a difficult game [at Aston Villa], for obvious reasons, having gone down to 10 men so early. It’s testament to the place we’re in – physically as a team. We’re pretty much as we were.”
There will be at least four Brentford players unavailable, as well as Schade missing due to suspension, an injured trio of Fabio Carvalho, Josh Dasilva and Antoni Milambo.
However, Keith Andrews happy to have others now available: “Two that will come back into the equation will be Kaye Furo and Reiss Nelson. Reiss had picked up a little knock, very minor, which is why he wasn’t available for that game against Aston Villa.”
Brentford captain Nathan Collins dropped to the bench last weekend due to a training ground incident but came on to help get the 10 men of Brentford that 1-0 victory over Villa: “He needed some stitches, it was right at the end of a training session, it was really unfortunate. Seeing how he was the day before the game, I ultimately made the decision not to start him. He wasn’t fully right but he came into a battle and that shows the character that he has. That’s why he’s my captain. He’s an amazing individual who leads by example on a daily basis.”
Brentford have only won two of the ten matches against Eddie Howe’s Newcastle United and both times Kevin Schade has scored, including the equaliser earlier this season when NUFC had led at half-time.
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