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Radio Five Live was this morning encouraging listeners to text in their favourite sporting axioms, such as motor racing’s “When the flag drops, the nonsense stops”, cricket’s “Catches win matches” or sprinters’ “Go on the “b” of the bang.” To this small pile of wisdom, the Wager would like to add something learnt from Newcastle’s dire predicament: “Never hire a manager whose CV includes the word ‘circus’.”

Newcastle’s travelling fiasco tonight checks in at Birmingham, where defeat would leave them just one game away from their worst nightmare: waking up to find Dennis Wise as their manager, an experience akin to finding a rat in your fridge. It would also leave them just seven games away from another experience to make them shudder: in 1977/78 they managed 19 games without a win, and failure to win tonight puts them on 13.

If they start smashing their failure records, Kevin Keegan’s suitability to run even his soccer circus, let alone a football club, may be called into question. The body which represents circus folk would certainly be taking steps to prevent his causing any further damage to their professional reputation. Perhaps a soccer old people’s home should be his next venture, preferably one of those where the residents’ memories aren’t as sharp as they used to be.

The statistics

* Though Birmingham have lost five league games at home this season, the Blues are unbeaten at St Andrews against sides in the bottom half of the Premiership.

* Ten of Newcastle’s fourteen league encounters away from St James’ Park have seen more than 2.5 goals, including each of the last five.

* A remarkable twenty-five of the thirty-two goals that Newcastle have conceded away from home in the league have been scored in the second half.

For more statistics on this match, head over to chickendinner

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