Scunthorpe vs. Newcastle United - Carling Cup 2nd Round Match Preview

Kevin Keegan who similarly had gained four points in two games against tough competition (a draw away at Man Utd and a win at home to Bolton) resigned from his post as Newcastle United manager shortly after a League Cup victory against Coventry. The reason? Because he felt he had no power over the running of his team. The club had sold their biggest asset James Milner to Aston Villa from underneath his nose and the management had decided to re-use the cash on two players that Keegan didn't want bringing to the club - young Spaniard Xisco for £5.7 million (who is inexplicably still on the books and is under-going his third loan spell away from the club as Newcastle struggle to overload him) and Uruguayan midfielder Nacho Gonzalez who played two games before being sent home. Despite the good start to the season, the club would be relegated that season. Fast forward three years in the future and current manager Alan Pardew (the fourth since Keegan) is preparing for his 2nd round League Cup tie against Scunthorpe tonight without the players earlier this year he had publically told the fans were vital to keep (Andy Carroll, club captain Kevin Nolan, Jose Enrique and almost certainly Joey Barton), all sold underneath his nose and also leaving him with the huge frustration that owner Mike Ashley is not giving him the backing in the transfer market to secure his targets. But nobody expects Pardew to resign right now. He isn't as strong a personality as Keegan who didn't really need the Newcastle job the way Pardew does and no matter how much Ashley undermines him at every turn, you can't see Pardew ever quitting his post. And they say fools are those who don't learn from history.... In any event tonight is an opportunity for Alan Pardew to try out some of his new signings and fringe/returning to fitness players as well as a few youngsters as the probability is he will have to look from within his squad for replacements to the players that have been sold. With Joey Barton currently needing some time and space to consider whether he really wants to move to London and join Queen Parks Rangers and with Danny Guthrie, Hatam Ben Arfa and Steve Harper all ruled out through injury, this means I would predict the squad to look something like this for tonight;

Krul

Perch - S Taylor - Williamson - R Taylor

Gosling - Smith (c) - Vuckic - Marveux

Best - Lovenkrands

Subs: Soderberg, Kadar, Ferguson, Abeid, Donaldson, Ba, Sammy Ameobi

No place for Soderberg in goal because from our Football Insider, we've heard they have no faith in his talents, so another game for Krul to get under his belt which shouldn't really be a bad thing for the new Newcastle no 1. I would play Taylor/Williamson as a partnership in the back because we haven't seen enough of them two playing together as most of their games have been alongside Coloccini. And Ryan Taylor would retain his place for me because there's (scarily) a chance that Newcastle won't get a new left back in to replace Jose Enrique, so he needs all the games he can get in that position to get used to it. Dan Gosling may well end up being Barton's right hand side replacement and he hasn't even started a game for Newcastle yet so he needs the pitch time. Alan Smith needs to justify his 50K a week salary and unless he has some mysterious injury should play central midfield (plus his experience could be vital), with the always impressive youngster Harris Vuckic getting a game in the middle, alongside exciting new signing Sylvain Marveux. Best & Lovenkrands should also get the chance up front to show what they can do (which in truth didn't seem to be a lot together as last year's run in showed). So basically a second team then outside of the goalkeeper/defence and at least that's how I would do it anyway. With a home Premiership tie against Fulham scheduled for early Sunday afternoon, I can't imagine too many other first team players would be risked tonight and if I were manager Alan Pardew, I certainly wouldn't be. Jonas, Coloccini, Shola Ameobi, Cheick Tiote and Yohan Cabaye should really be given the night off. There's plenty of experience in that team above and plenty of players who will feel like they have something to prove to the manager and that team should seriously be able to beat Scunthorpe tonight. I'm a Newcastle fan and I don't usually venture too far outside of the Premiership because I can't say I have looked too closely on lower leagues so apologies but I can't make a prediction on how Scunthorpe will line up. Apologies about that. So an interesting game tonight. Pardew won't want to be another Premiership League Cup casualty of the week and with the added pressure of live t.v. will want to give it a good go tonight but in truth, he will probably be happy to be focusing on something other than Joey Barton. Tonight's game kicks off at 7.45pm and will be shown live on Sky Sports 1. The winner will be put into Saturday's third round draw where the European bye teams are included.