It's funny how injuries can help a team as much as hinder them: first Tim Krul miraculously recovered from what was thought a serious elbow injury picked up on a frustratingly distracting international break, and now French striker Emanuel Riviere has picked up on the eve of Leicester game. That might seem like a funny thing to say, given that Newcastle need as many striking options as they can get right now, but it means Alan Pardew can now ignore the calls to play two strikers thanks to a handy excuse. The former Monaco striker has apparently suffered a knock in the build-up to the game, having been dropped for the Swansea game, and while some will bemoan the sparse available options in attack, there is pretty much no way Pardew would ever have played him even though Papiss Cisse has played two international games in the last week. Why would he? He has no intention of over-hauling the system that has so far been a disaster for the Magpies. Pardew can now choose a single striker as he has been more inclined to through the start of the season, because there's more chance of him selecting John Carver to play upfront than there is of him putting faith in either Ayoze Perez or Adam Armstrong from the start of a game. Unfortunately, if Newcastle win using this lone striker system, you have to suspect the manager will feel completely justified in continuing to play it, despite the last seven games. He will see the win as trumping everything that went before it, no matter who the opposition, and that will be punished once more against more difficult opposition (on paper at least) like Spurs and Liverpool. Pardew has confirmed that Cisse will play, and the worry of course is that the Senegalese striker breaks down after playing so many games in such quick succession after his recovery from a knee injury. If that happens, Newcastle will seriously be up the creek - unless Perez and Armstrong prove to be the refreshing influences everyone hopes.
