United’s youngsters take on their fellow Magpies at Whitley Park (7pm kick-off), having just ended a poor run of form in the Premier League 2 Division Two with a thumping victory over Fulham.
Last term, Ben Dawson’s troops progressed to the last eight of the competition – as they did the previous year – only to lose 2-1 to Sheffield United, a side perched a level below on the pyramid.
It was – as Bailey acknowledged – an opportunity lost for Newcastle’s Under-23s, and the young midfielder already has his eye on another prolonged run in the competition this time out.
“Obviously, after having such a good run, we’ll try and replicate that this year. We should have done better against Sheffield United, and we all know that,” he told nufc.co.uk. “We’re hoping to improve on what we did last year. It was still a good achievement to make it to the quarter finals, but after going that far and falling short the way we did, I think we’ll be out for some revenge this year and looking to go a bit further.
“That game’s in the back of our heads – we’ll use that as ammunition to try and get a good, positive result against Notts County and kick off the campaign well. Hopefully we can use that experience positively, instead of dwelling on it.
“I think we have to be wary – we don’t know what Notts County are like. They’re an unknown quantity. They could be anything – they could be brilliant. We’ll try and be confident, come out early doors, and take it from there. It’ll be a tricky game, as it always is, but hopefully we can get off to a good start.”
Danish forward Elias Sørensen bagged a hat-trick as United beat Fulham 5-2 on Monday night, ending a sequence of four straight defeats in the Premier League 2’s second tier.
Though still only their third win of any sort this season, it was already the second game in which the young Magpies have hit five goals, a statistic which Bailey believes is testament to how good they can be on their day.
“When everything clicks, we’re a really good side. We’ve beat some good teams this season, and hopefully we can continue doing that,” he said. “The problem with us is that it doesn’t always click. I don’t know why that is – it’s not like we’re not trying. Everyone always tries their best in every game and in every training session, but for some reason it doesn’t always happen – we just get the wrong bounce of the ball and the other team end up coming away with the points instead of us.
“We’ve played some really good stuff at times, but the performances haven’t really been reflected in the results we’ve had. There’ve been games we should have won but haven’t, and we’ve ended up coming away with nothing. All people look at are the results, so to win the other night – in the way we did – was massive for the team, and hopefully now we can build on that and take a bit of form into the league, and the two cup competitions, too.”
