Irons in the fire! Scunthorpe United v Newcastle United League Cup preview.
Posted on August 25th, 2011 | 4 Comments |
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.
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.
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