Newcastle United defender Florian Lejeune is primed for his clash with Manchester United striker Romelu Lukaku tonight.

Lejeune knows the brute strength of Lukaku combined with Marcus Rashford's pace represents another stiff examination for him.

“We will have to concentrate and defend in an intelligent way," he said.

“We have been watching videos, working on ways to stop them but to avoid bad tackles and giving away fouls."

Meanwhile, Toon boss Rafa Benitez has set themselves a points target for the first-half of the season.

The Magpies have made a solid start to the season and sit in 11th place.

But Benitez is still in the early phases of his project at Newcastle.

He said: “I tried to explain from the beginning we're a newly-promoted club that has to settle in the Premier League, and losing games is part of the process - hopefully we can stop that this weekend.

“If we think about the target that it is to stay in the Premier League and then try to finish as high as we can, that's good.

“We have 14 points and if we come out of the first part with 20 we can be optimistic."