Irons in the fire! Scunthorpe United v Newcastle United League Cup preview.

Posted on August 25th, 2011 | 4 Comments |

Irons in the fire at Glanford Park.
Irons in the fire at Glanford Park.
Venue: Glanford Park, Scunthorpe.
Date: Thursday, 25 August.
Kick-off: 7:45PM.
Referee: Graham Salisbury.

Scunthorpe united await the Magpies this Thursday night as the two sides meet at Glanford Park in the League Cup second round.

The match is scheduled for live broadcasting via Sky Sports 1, kick-off is at 7.45pm (BST). Graham Sailsbury is the man in the middle. Hopefully,  Alan Parry won’t be  Sky commentator for the game, simply because I find his voice annoying. We shall see…

The tie must finish on the night, with 30 minutes extra time to decide the match if the scores are still level after 90 minutes. If after extra time there is no winner, the game will be decided by penalties. We all love a good penalty shoot-out, don’t we?

You may remember our last visit to the Irons during our 2009-2010 championship season, where United lost the match 2-1. Kevin Nolan was on target for us that night.

If Newcastle progress to Round 3, you will be able to watch the draw on Sky Sports Soccer Saturday, hopefully Paul Merson will get the chance to draw some of the teams from the bag because I love watching him struggle to pronounce the simplest of words.

Right, on to the football and Newcastle approach this match on the back of beating Sunderland 1-0 at the Stadium of Light. Scunthorpe haven’t had the best of starts this season as they haven’t won any of their opening 4 league matches. However, they dispensed of Accrington Stanley 2-0 to progress to round 2 of the league cup.

Squad

Newcastle United: (from): Krul (G), Harper(G), Simpson, Ryan Taylor, Ferguson, Coloccini, Steven Taylor, Williamson, Tiote, Cabaye, Gutierrez, Marveaux, Obertan, Gosling, Smith, Abeid, Ba, Shola Ameobi, Lovenkrands, Best, Vuckic, Sammy Ameobi.

Expect players such as Steve Harper, Dan Gosling, Haris Vuckic, Mike Williamson, Peter Lovenkrands, Mehdi Abeid and Leon Best to get a run out. Sammy Ameobi may also get a start and I expect Shane Ferguson to slot in at left-back. Sylvain Marveaux will likely make his debut for the Magpies, probably being deployed on the left of midfield. James Tavernier, Michael Richardson, Kazenga Lua Lua, Xisco, Fraser Forster and Phil Airey are unavailable due to being away on loan. Hatem Ben Arfa is out injured as is Danny Guthrie.

I expect Newcastle to line-up something like this
I expect Newcastle to line-up something like this
I think we will line up in a traditional 4-4-2, with Harper getting chance to keep goal. The impressive Dan Gosling should finally get his chance in midfield, though I think he will be asked to hold his position instead of bombing forward like we saw during pre-season. Another impressive player during pre-season was Haris Vuckic and we should get chance to see him as the advanced midfielder. Marveaux will likely operate the left flank, though he could be swapped over with Abeid on the right. I expect Lovenkrands to partner Best up top. Mike Williamson should also get a start, probably alongside Coloccini, though it may be Steven Taylor who gets the nod to start.

Key man: Sylvain Marveaux

All eyes will be on him Thursday evening, he will be expected to be the teams creative spark. I think Dan Gosling is on par with him though and I expect Gosling to put in a good performance to show Pardew he deserves a place in the starting X1 on Sunday against Fulham.

Match thoughts and waffle

As rare as it is to hear from Alan Pardew, I’ve decided to give you some recent thoughts of local boy Steven Taylor in regards to the upcoming encounter with the Irons. I hope you can forgive me for opting for Taylor over Pardew…

Taylor has been talking to the official Newcastle United website, where he had this to say:

“It would be fantastic for team spirit to go on and try to do well in the competition.

“A cup run would be great for the club and for the fans as well.

“We want to do well in all competitions this season; the league, the FA cup, and the league cup and there’s no reason why we can’t.”

So hopefully this will be the season where Newcastle actually progress to the later stages of this very winnable competition. Last season saw us beating Accrington Stanley 3-2 in the 2nd round, then visiting Stamford Bridge for what was a great tie where United prospered 4-3 thanks to a last minute Shola Ameobi header. Newcastle were eventually knocked out by Arsenal in round 4, as then manager, Chris Hughton, opted to field a weakened team and rested key players, due to Newcastle meeting Sunderland the following Saturday. Birmingham City were the eventual winners of the competition, after beating Arsenal 2-1 in the final, with 67 year old ex-Magpie Obafemi Martins scoring a stoppage time winner.

Since Newcastle United last won a major trophy in 1969, the following clubs have won the league cup:

Swindon, Spurs, Man City, Stoke, Wolves, Aston Villa, Nottingham Forest, Liverpool, Norwich, Oxford United, Arsenal, Luton Town, Sheffield Wednesday, Man United, Leicester City, Chelsea, Liverpool, Blackburn, Middlesbrough and Birmingham City.

As you can see, there are some footballing ‘giants’ who have managed to win this competition in recent years. Kind of depressing when you think about it…

Anyway hopefully Pardew will treat this competition seriously and give it a really good go. Maybe we might get to Wembley. That’ll be a nice day out don’t you think?

Howay the Lads.

NUFCBlog Author: Jimbob Backpacker extraordinaire and current resident of sunny Sheffield. Loves Marmite, hates peanut butter. Sleeps twice a day, wrestles Polar Bears because he can and regards himself as cool as a cucumber in a bowl of hot sauce. Jimbob has written 40 articles on this blog.

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Comment on this post

4 Responses

  1. Looking at the team/squad, can anyone enlighten me on what has happened to Kadar, This kid was very highly rated around Europe and is left sided – no bad thing with our current defensive problems

  2. If we are realistic…. this is the sort of competition we CAN and should aim to win (I’d even say FA cup too).

    Would we really mind trying to take this cup seriously and getting to Wembley? No.

    There’s always the worry and too many games…seriously!?! We are not in Europe any more !!

  3. Given that we are unlikely to win the league anytime soon (or even anytime at all) the League Cup is probably our best chance of a trophy other than the glorious Northumberland Cup of course for which we tend to do well sweeping all aside.

    My team would be:

    Harper,
    Simpson, Saylor, Williamson, Raylor;
    Smith, Gosling;
    Sammy, Vuckic, Marveaux,
    Ba

    I have picked Raylor has he will probably need more practice as a left back as I don’t see a new left back coming in before the Fulham game.

    I have picked Smith as we need a holding midfield player.

    I have picked the rest (with exception of Simpson and Saylor who would be my captain) as they all need a full competative game.

    Score 1:2