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Jamaal Lascelles wants to erase the memory of the away defeat to Nottingham Forest by beating his former team at St James’ Park this Friday.

Newcastle United’s captain says he is looking forward to taking on Nottingham Forest with equal numbers on the pitch, after the Magpie’s were reduced to nine men in the reverse fixture earlier this month, which saw Forest win 2-1.

Paul Dummett and Jonjo Shelvey were dismissed but both cards were later overturned, and Lascelles, who signed for United from Forest in 2014, admits there is a desire to beat Philippe Montanier’s side.

Speaking to NUFC.co.uk, he said: “I’m glad we have another game around the corner. It’s a massive game for us – not just to win the three points, but also to beat them. Last time at their place, I felt we were a bit hard done by, and we’re really looking forward to going into that game with 11 men and having them on our turf.”

Lascelles captained United to a 1-0 defeat against Sheffield Wednesday, a result which meant a Brighton win against QPR would knock The Magpies off the top of the league - something Chris Hughton’s men duly obliged with.

Speaking about the defeat to Sheffield Wednesday, Lascelles said: “We weren’t up to it. I thought we started off well – we had quite a few chances. Maybe we should have done better attacking set-pieces. Perhaps we need to work on getting our head on a few more, because the deliveries are good.

“Their manager must have told them to slow the game down, because every time we went forward we were getting kicked. They were fouling us every time we went forward. We didn’t really get to play our normal football.

“You can always ‘um’ and ‘ah’ and argue, but the referee has to keep everyone happy and make the right decision. There’s nothing we can change, and ultimately, that’s not what has cost us the game – what cost us the game was them winning second balls in our box and us not putting our chances away.”

United will be out with Jonjo Shelvey, who will serve the second of his five match ban for using racial language, and his absence was felt in the middle of park but Lascelles believes that Shelvey being banned had little to do wit the result.

He added: “Jonjo does bring something different, but we have players who can slot into every position. We have a really strong team and players who are wanting to play, so it’s nothing to do with that. We could play a completely different team and I’d still expect us to win.”

Newcastle go into the game two points behind Brighton and welcome a Forest side which has not won since beating Rafa Benitez’s men on December 2.