Morecambe v Newcastle - League Cup match preview
The Shrimps v The Magpies Newcastle kick-off their League Cup campaign with a trip to Morecambe this evening looking to record their first competitive win of the season.
The venue will be the 6,400 capacity Globe Arena and it's been confirmed that United have sold their entire allocation of 1,800 tickets so a good atmosphere should be ensured. Hopefully with a good result for us in the end to boot!
Cup campaigns have been awful for us for years and we've seen ourselves fall at early hurdles far too often for my liking. No doubt eyes will be on another upset tomorrow evening as the TV cameras roll up in Morecambe looking for some "giant killing" fun.
Of course it's no "fun" for us having to go through it all again, but it's a cup and we should be going for it. There is no excuse of the Europa League this term and we've seen teams like Swansea win it so why can't we? That shows it doesn't have to be dominated by the bigger clubs. Why can't this be our year?
Newcastle:
Yohan Cabaye will not be involved as he continues his absence from the first-team. Loic Remy will not be be risked until Saturday at the earliest whilst Steven Taylor serves the second of his three match ban following his sending off against Manchester City. Jonas Gutierrez and Massadio Haidara are both sidelined whilst the availability of Mike Williamson, Gabriel Obertan and Cheik Tiote are unconfirmed.
Loan players such as Mehdi Abeid, Adam Campbell and Shane Ferguson will obviously not be available, but fringe players like Gael Bigirimana and Dan Gosling could be involved along with players who have, as yet, not featured as much as they may have liked such as Sylvain Marveaux and Vurnon Anita.
Morecambe:
Andrew Wright returns from suspension while Barry Roche, Kevin Ellison and Marcus Marshall, who returned at the weekend, are expected to play. Andreas Arestidou, Morecambe's second choice goalkeeper, was once on the books with United.
Previously...
This is the first meeting between the two sides so there is no previous to write about so to speak.
What I can say is that we've progressed in our last 12 second round ties in this competition, with our last exit coming in 1990 at the hands of Middlesbrough.
Match stats and facts...
No player created more chances for his team in the first round than Morecambe's Ryan Williams (four) in his side's victory over Wolves.
Newcastle have played their last six League Cup ties away from home.
Final thought...
We must win this game. Alan Pardew was right in his pre-match blathering when he said Morecambe are in a no lose situation. We are the ones that are expected to win here. The problem is that we've struggled to do that against lower league teams. Wit the greatest of respects to Morecambe we should be overcoming this comfortably but football doesn't work like that.
We need to make sure it does and those eleven on the pitch need to ensure that they are suitably up for it. It's the managers job to do just that, but it's also the responsibility of the players to carry that through. For once, and rather stupidly with no foundation behind it, I'm actually surprisingly confident...
Howay the lads!
Date: Wednesday, 28th August, 2013
Time: 19:45
Venue: Globe Arena, Morecambe
