Premier League, 8pm, Setanta Sports 1, bet here

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:

Did you do what we told you to at the weekend?

While Kevin Keegan failed to uphold his excellent record with new teams (he has never lost a match with a newly-managed side, and has always scored), plenty of the weekend’s Premier League action went according to our statistics.

Firstly, we told you Birmingham’s January blues would continue:

» chickendinner superfact: Birmingham are yet to win a game in January, and they picked up