Newcastle will be hoping to put their embarrassing 3-2 defeat to Hull at the weekend behind them by dispatching of Leeds United and reaching the fourth round of the Capital One Cup tonight. The defeat by the newly-promoted former Championship side will give Leeds hope that another upset could be on the cards, but the Whites have a pretty dire record against tonight's opponents. The last time Brian McDermott's side defeated the Magpies was 2002, when goals from Mark Viduka and Alan Smith were enough to seal a 2-0 win. Since then, Newcastle have lost just one of their last nine games against Leeds (all in the Premier League), winning six and drawing two. The North East club have however never prevailed over their Yorkshire rivals in the League Cup. In their only two encounters, Leeds won 1-0 at home in the second round in 1966, and then again 4-2 on aggregate at the same stage in 1982. Leeds are also in good form recently, and have lost just one of their five away games in all competitions this season, winning three and drawing one. The stage is set then for an evenly balanced affair and one that could be more difficult for Alan Pardew's men than it looks on paper.
Joseph is an accredited football journalist and has interviewed nearly all of the current 20 Barclay's Premier League managers. He is also a correspondent for Bleacher Report and has written for Caught Offside and Give Me Football.
