Whole Country Against Us?

Ex-Toon hero Rob Lee is seeing out the back-end of his career with Wycombe Wanderers and his League Two outfit have already faced Cheltenham twice this season.

Lee: 'It isn't a nice situation to be in for Newcastle because everybody in the country bar the Geordies wants Cheltenham to win. Football is like that when it comes to underdogs and this game won't be any different, in a way Newcastle cannot win. If they win, people will say that's what they were meant to do anyway and if they lose they'll get slaughtered in the press.

'No doubt the Sun newspaper will be supporting them like they did with Stevenage and Yeading last year and that doesn't help Newcastle.

'That day Stevenage's ground and pitch was a real leveller and I think this will be similar. We were 1-0 up that day but they pegged us back and we ended up going to a replay. We made a mistake that day so you need to be two or three up just to kill them off.

'A draw would not be a disaster but it won't help Graeme Souness because of the current predicament United find themselves in. A score of 3-0 or 4-0 would be ideal for them and the season looks a little bit different when you are safely in the hat for round five of the FA Cup.

'It won't be easy because Cheltenham will try to match them on the day. The Cheltenham boys want to be Premiership players at heart and the only way they can get to do that is by beating a Premiership team in front of the cameras. The thing with Cheltenham is they don't try to kick you - they try to play football.

'That's what they did against us and they have got some success from that because they are just below the play-off area in a tough division. The only problem with that from their point of view is that if they try to play it might make it too open, and that game plan could be dangerous against Newcastle.'