Newcastle vs Portmouth

The Carling Cup reaches the Third Round stage this week as we meet Portsmouth on Wednesday evening, in what is one of a quartet of all-Premiership ties.

Kickoff at SJP is at 7.45pm and tickets for this game are on sale now. There will also be pay turnstiles at all four corners of the ground on the night - adults £20, OAPs £17, bairns £10.

We go looking for our 50th win and 177th goal in this competition, this being our 115th match since we met Colchester on Tyneside back in October 1960.

We lost that one 4-1 in front of less than 10,000 and have enjoyed few pleasurable nights since then - regardless what this thing has been called (League, Milk, Littlewoods, Rumbelows, Coca Cola, Worthington & Carling).

An appearance in the 1976 final against Manchester City was a rare highlight, but we were beaten 2-1. Since then we've got to the Fifth Round stage just three times.

While we really cannot get excited about a competition in which we've been consistently rotten in for decades, this game has the potential to be remembered in similar fashion to our loss at Wigan last season.

Defeat in this competition at the JJB against a virtual Latics second string had protesting fans surrounding Freddy Shepherd's car and fundamentally weakened the position of Souness to a point where his departure became a question of when, not if....

Andy Cole goes looking for a goal against his former club, having already netted in the colours of Manchester United, Blackburn and Manchester City. However he failed to hit the target in the two games he played for Fulham against us.

Also in line for a return to their former ground are Lomana LuaLua and Andy O'Brien. No chance of seeing Andy Griffin though - he's currently on loan at Stoke City.

NUFC: To follow...Roeder has confirmed that Giuseppe Rossi will make his first start for the club.

So far the on-loan Manchester United striker has made four sub appearances totalling just 47 minutes, from a possible 630 minutes of play.

This will be his sixth appearance in the competition he made his senior debut in - at Old Trafford against Crystal Palace in November 2004.

He's netted once in those previous five games (three starts), scoring against Barnet last season.

United have injury concerns for Sibierski (ankle) and Emre (back) and Babayaro (attitude.)

PFC: To follow...

UK Live TV Coverage: none

Overseas Live TV Coverage: none

Ref: TBC

NUFC vs Pompey post war @ SJP

2005/06 Won 2-0 N'Zogbia, Shearer
2004/05 Drew 1-1 Bowyer
2003/04 Won 3-0 Speed, Shearer, Ameobi
1992/93 Won 3-1 Quinn 2, Kelly
1991/92 Won 1-0 Kelly
1990/91 Won 2-0 Quinn 2
1989/90 Won 1-0 Thorn
1987/88 Drew 1-1 Mirandinha
1983/84 Won 4-2 Waddle 2, Keegan, Wharton
1964/65 Won 3-0 Iley, Hockey, Anderson
1963/64 Won 1-0 Dalton
1962/63 Drew 1-1 Thomas
1958/59 Won 2-0 Bottom 2
1957/58 Won 2-0 Davies, Mitchell
1956/57 Won 2-1 Crowe, Taylor
1955/56 Won 2-1 Mitchell 2
1954/55 Won 2-1 Keeble
1953/54 Drew 1-1 Milburn
1952/53 Won 1-0 G.Robledo
1951/52 Drew 3-3 Milburn, Mitchell, G.Robledo
1950/51 Drew 0-0
1949/50 Lost 1-3 G.Robledo
1948/49 Lost 0-5 No scorer

Carling Cup Third Round:

Tue 24.10.06

Chesterfield v West Ham
Everton v Luton
Leeds v Southend
Leicester v Aston Villa
Notts County v Southampton
Port Vale v Norwich
Sheffield United v Birmingham
Watford v Hull City
West Brom v Arsenal
Wycombe v Doncaster Rovers

Wed 25.10.06

Blackburn v Chelsea
Charlton v Bolton
Crewe v Manchester United
Liverpool v Reading
MK Dons v Tottenham
Newcastle v Portsmouth

nice one pconway, so we ent lost to pompey for god know how long.

lets hope we can get a win then 2moz!!

I thought we were good value for our win and while the first-half wasn’t much to write home about we played some excellent stuff in the second 45 and won quite comfortably in the end. There was good performances all over the park and the home crowd responded to that by getting behind the lads throughout.

What impressed me most was our desire to win and that tells me that for now at least, the players are playing for Roeder because a good number of them were charged up for this match, unlike Portsmouth who bottled it.

Key man? Well I thought Bramble never put a foot wrong, he was excellent. Milner worked hard and had a very good game as did Nobby, Rossi and N’Zogbia too. I also thought Butt did well in the centre.

Another pleasing aspect was our football which improved when Martins went off, our final ball let us down at times mind and we did over elaborate throughout but given the conditions fans enjoyed the performance.

Well done Roeder and the lads.