Newcastle are faltering a little, possibly suffering from the mid-season blues as performances have taken a hit across the festive period.

Their position remains strong with the club sat second in the league with a six point advantage over third place Reading, although the Royals do have a game in hand over the rest of the top six.

With the huge wealth Newcastle possess over the rest of the division, there's little doubt they can afford to bring in the talent to push them across the line for promotion, with names like Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Fabian Delph and Tom Cleverley linked.

Their team is far from perfect as they find themselves, rather surprisingly, in second place to Brighton and Hove Albion, with a clash between the two sides at the end of the month looking more and more enticing as the weeks go by.

But with a big squad comes unhappy fringe players and inevitably Newcastle will have to offload a couple of these in January for the good of the player.

Here are two players Rafa Benitez should sell this week.

Cheick Tiote

It's fair to say that Tiote doesn't really have a future at Newcastle United, having played all of 16 minutes for the club this season, despite making 20 appearances in the Premier League last year.

There were reports that he was headed to China or possibly Turkey with a switch to Galatasaray over the summer, but no move materialised.

He has six months to run on his deal with the club, so it would make a lot of sense for Benitez to cash in on him, with Sporting Gijon supposedly interested in signing him.

Daryl Murphy

I can't be the only one wondering why Newcastle decided to sign Daryl Murphy from Ipswich Town over the summer, especially with the likes of Ayoze Perez, Aleksandar Mitrovic and Dwight Gayle already in their squad.

He's played three minutes of league football for the club, although he did start their FA Cup tie with Birmingham City on the weekend, scoring within six minutes.

It would make sense for them to ditch Murphy and sell him to another Championship club, as there is little need to keep him around at the club.

 

Newcastle fans... Do you agree with this? Should you lose these players? Let us know in the comments below.