Everyone loves a surprise packet. They are part of the romance that football stirs in every breast.
You know, Leicester City win the Premier League title against incredible odds. Little Carlisle United make the top flight of English football. Non-league part-timers Hereford knock First Division Newcastle out of the FA Cup.
Well, perhaps not the last one. Not up here anyway. But you get the general drift.
READ MORE: Newcastle already have 'massive' stadium advantage to realise owners' cup dream
May I suggest that this season United are a surprise package. Oh everyone expects the Magpies to fly high backed by oceans of Saudi oil but not from second-bottom to third-top inside a year.
To a lesser extent Fulham are a surprise too. Normally clubs like them are forever on soccer's trampoline. They go up and then straight back down. Fulham have done it a few times. So have Norwich City.
However this season it is different. The Cottagers have of recent times reached as high as seventh top of the PL lauding it above the likes of Brighton, Brentford and . . . Chelsea. Level on points with Liverpool. They are in no danger of going back down to the Championship, only of suffering from vertigo.
Fulham have already surpassed their points total for 2018-18 with barely half a season gone and have drawn level with their tally for 2020-21. They are built on the shrewdness of manager Marco Silva and the goalscoring exploits of a former Magpie muscle man Aleksandar Mitrovic.
However standing across ring for this particular knock out battle is Eddie Howe and NUFC which is quite another matter from the routine. United are just about the hardest team to beat in top-flight football - they and leaders Arsenal, who they held the last time domestic football was played in the league, are the only sides who have lost just once all season.
The Mags slaughtered Fulham 4-1 at Craven Cottage on the first day of October and while they have improved since United have remained rock solid. Now the temptation to tinker in the FA Cup is out of the way and the reality of the toughest league in the world is back with us normal service hopefully will be resumed. Let us not forget that United have lost only once in 18 PL matches.
United are built on firm foundations. They have kept seven successive clean sheets at SJP - four in the PL and three in the League Cup. Indeed since losing to Liverpool in the PL last April, United had gone 13 league and cup home games without defeat scoring 22 goals and conceding five.
In a perfect world we would like to see Callum Wilson back among the goals because of the lift that would give him, but when United's offensive back up from the bench is headed by £60m Alexander Isak and box of tricks Allan Saint-Maximin then the world does indeed look a rosy place.
Especially, I might add, after the League Cup draw! Habitual winners Manchester City surprisingly removed from the equation, United not only avoided Man United getting Southampton instead but with the two legs the right way round. Home second. Yes, after the painful years of Mike Ashley doom and gloom the sun has risen spectacularly over the Angel of the North.
READ NEXT
Newcastle get glimpse of future, Eddie Howe's words to special guests and Leicester show class
Newcastle prove Steve Bruce wrong, hero found and James Maddison gets stadium glimpse - 5 things
Newcastle stadium change blows opposition manager away after his Leeds United scouting mission
Brutal Newcastle prank left cult hero and his wife raging as culprit gets 'double whammied'
Newcastle will soon have the 'game-changers' Eddie Howe wants before owners even make next move
