An omen?

I know that geography is actually not a very useful way of grouping football teams (when people talk of 'northern teams' meaning Blackburn, Bolton and Wigan they should really include Fulham as well).

But anyway.

For both trips to the north east this season (beating Sunderland 3-0 and drawing 2-2 with Newcastle), Hughes has dropped Elano and started Didi Hamann.

Could he do the same tonight?

I think he might just not. Newcastle and Sunderland are both very pretty physical teams in midfield. Middlesbrough are good in certain ways, but I don't think we should be that scared of O'Neil, Digard and Shawky.