A look ahead at Kansas City.

Newcastle play their second pre-season game this evening when they take on Sporting Kansas City in the first game of their three match U.S mini-tour.

Before I get onto team news, as it stands there is NO TV coverage of the game tonight so consequently there is unlikely to be any form of watching it should you still be awake at the UK kick-off time of 1:30am (Thursday morning!).

Moving onto a bit of team news... Alan Pardew will be without Joey Barton, Nile Ranger and Yohan Cabaye after the trio failed to gain the necessary visa to be able to go and play football in the USA. Pardew will also be without injury victims Shane Ferguson and Danny Guthrie who picked up knocks at Darlington whilst James Perch continues to recover from a troublesome ankle injury.

Mike Williamson is in Holland as he is expecting to have to rush home for the birth of his child and The Netherlands is evidently closer to home than the US is, and Wayne Routledge has also not travelled as he is likely to finalise a move to Swansea (or Leicester, or Forest, or QPR, or...) in the next few days.

With all of those players missing it gives some of the younger lads a chance to have a run out. Mehdi Abeid impressed at Darlington so could get another chance to show what he has to offer, whilst Dan Gosling is likely to get another stretch of the legs as he looks to build fitness after spending over a year sat on the sidelines.

There will also be a further chance for the kids to impress as Alan Pardew is likely to make as many substitutes as possible. Up to ten are allowed this evening, and with temperatures set to top 100ºF you can perhaps understand why the manager will want to keep things fresh.

In line for debuts are Demba Ba and Sylvain Marveaux, both of whom sat out the match at Darlington, and Cheik Tiote is also expected to play a part after working on his fitness over the last week or so.

If anyone happens to be going then make sure you have a great time and get in touch if you can grab any photographs or opinions on how we played or how an individual played and so on. For the rest, it's a shame we can't watch it but nevermind. I'll keep an eye out for goals or highlights for us to look at instead.

Howay the lads!