Obafemi Martins suffered a groin strain in the victory at Portsmouth and may well have to sit out Newcastle's busy Christmas schedule. Magpies' assistant boss Chris Hughton is hoping the knock will not prove to be as serious as first feared.

"Oba felt his groin go after scoring on Sunday and he was in for treatment yesterday," he told the Evening Chronicle.

"All we can do is to assess the injury as the week goes on and we should know more in the next couple of days as to the extent of the problem.

"Obviously, with the holiday period coming up, we want all our players fit and on this score we are as healthy as we have been all season.

"Apart from Oba, we have no other short-term injuries, and this was seen by the strength of our bench at Portsmouth on Sunday.

"In fact, Shola Ameobi came off the bench to replace Oba and set up our third goal for Danny Guthrie and this is the sort of thing we want."