The foreign "invisible men" include Marcelino, Viana, Luque, Bassedas, and whole lot more.
So what of the latest foreign brigade? Alan Pardew says "I have never known a season like it, as a player or a manager."
Injuries continuing to deny the manager the opportunity to select his strongest team, something he has experienced for much of the campaign to date.
The side he sent out at West Brom on Saturday was missing keeper Tim Krul, full-back Davide Santon, Coloccini and holding midfielder Cheick Tiote, while playmaker Hatem Ben Arfa was fit enough only to be used as a substitute, and Sylvain Marveaux and Ryan Taylor were unavailable to him too.
However, Pardew is confident the plague of injuries is the result of misfortune rather than anything else.
Alan Pardew: "We have got a good medical team here. In all seasons, there are one or two [injuries] perhaps you could have prevented by holding them back, and maybe that's something we will look at."