And he needs to decide whether he finds room for Andriy Yarmolenko from the start – an unlikely option, however, given the fine two goal performance of Jarrod Bowen.
Yarmo fills the impact role which was once perhaps assigned to Michail Antonio – man of the match against the Blues on Wednesday evening.
His other issue is that Jack Wilshere looked in pretty decent touch when he appeared against Lampard’s lot and all but put Mikey in for a goal near the end.
There may be question marks at the back over Ryan Fredericks and Issa Diop and whilst we believe the manager may be looking hard at young Ben Johnson is seems unlikely that he will prefer Fabian Balbuena to the young French defender.
We understand Mark Noble remains injured and with that midfield of Rice, Soucek, Fornasl and Bowen looking serious business – the team will be looking to take advantage of a game in which Newcastle boss Steve Bruce is reporting one of two injuries.
COYI
CandH team: Fabianski; Johnson, Diop, Ogbonna, Cresswell; Rice, Soucek, Fornals, Bowen, Lanzini,Antpnio