PRETTY CITY A CLASS APART
Newcastle’s lack of ambition shown up by Pep’s romantics
To be generous, Newcastle’s best laid plans were undone by a moment of foolishness from defender Javier Manquillo. but that isn’t the full story.
The best team won. Not just best in ability, but best in intention, in aesthetic ambition, best for football. Manchester City tried to win an FA Cup quarter-final, Newcastle tried to stop them, while offering little alternative.
Yes, there is a mighty difference in the two projects, the investment in talent — for the moment at least — and the football it can produce. but considerably worse teams than Newcastle have played City and had a go. Wigan, in this competition, for one.
So when, after a spectacularly one-sided passage of play lasting 36 minutes, Manquillo needlessly placed two hands on the back of Gabriel Jesus and pushed, it may have undermined Steve bruce’s strategy, but justice was done. It was a penalty, and it would have been a travesty had Newcastle got to half-time level. They didn’t deserve that. City deserved their reward. City deserved all that came their way, in fact.
Kevin De bruyne stepped up and scored his third consecutive penalty for the club. That used to be a point of weakness for them. No more. De bruyne is the ultimate problem solver for his manager, Pep Guardiola. of course, he would prove a lethal finisher from 12 yards. He passes it into the net, just the same.
The second goal, ending the game as a contest — such as it was — came on 68 minutes after Newcastle had missed their sole chance of the evening. Aymeric Laporte played a stunning crossfield pass from deep — Guardiola believes his absence for swathes of the season is one of the reasons City fell so far behind Liverpool in the Premier League — which picked out the newly-introduced Phil Foden. He moved it on to Raheem Sterling, curling the ball out of reach of Karl Darlow in Newcastle’s goal. A fabulous goal, and another fabulous performance by the england man.
It wasn’t much of a game, sadly, mainly because, by definition, this requires two teams to be competing and that simply wasn’t the case. Newcastle, for large periods seemed to occupy the role the reserve group of players take on in training: little more than obstacles to be overcome. At times they had little more ambition that the pad man in a boxing gym, and about as
much chance of landing a knock-out punch. If they came within shooting distance of City’s goal, which wasn’t often, they shot — a tactic that seemed based around the presumption that Claudio Bravo truly was as bad as some of the most lurid headlines have suggested, or prone to mid- match bouts of narcolepsy.
The criticism of much of Project Restart has been that, without the passion and energy of crowds, the matches can resemble practice or exhibition games That isn’t entirely true. There have been some very good encounters — Chelsea v Manchester City was one — that have been sold short by the absence of atmosphere.
This, however, wasn’t undone by an empty St James’ Park, but by the way Newcastle approached it. Even with a full house what could have been done about such a bloodless first-half display? Not that Newcastle did not work hard — to stay compact and resist City takes a lot of effort — more that the team did not set up to deliver excitement, much less a goal.
Steve Bruce’s critics will argue it has been like this all season. Yet there is a difference between organising a team to win on the counter-attack, and simply absorbing pressure, while hoping to get lucky. And, don’t forget, that was pretty much how Rafa Benitez played City on several occasions, too. It has been many years since a Newcastle manager felt confident enough in his players to go at a team of City’s excellence, toe to toe.
Unless, of course, we count Andy Carroll’s crude roughing up of Laporte as a fair fight. He led with an arm after two minutes, referee Lee Mason did nothing. He hit him again, a leading arm once more, at the start of the second half, Mason decided to find it charming. Then he topped him up a third time, and was booked. Carroll walked away gesticulating angrily, the victim of a conspiracy as usual. To think this man was once considered a potential England international. If English football did not play its own version of the rules he would never last 90 minutes.
And a fight isn’t the same as a match. So what we endured in lieu of one, was football’s equivalent of rope-a-dope. Newcastle retreating ever deeper, inviting City into the congested middle, or trying to force them wide; City accepting that invitation greedily and using it to pass in swirls of furious activity, before the inevitable dig at goal.
It is to the credit of stand-in goalkeeper Darlow and some spirited defensive resistance that the damage was not greater, sooner. As 27 minutes passed, City had completed 188 passes to Newcastle’s 15. Any team working at roughly one successful pass every two minutes is not going to present as distraction, much less a challenge.
So it was from the 12th minute, when De Bruyne played a crossfield pass to David Silva, who threaded it inside to Riyad Mahrez, who shot over. That set a pattern to be repeated with monotonous regularity. In the 17th minute, Kyle Walker hit a low, hard cross that cannoned off David Silva, but just wide, before Mahrez had another shot drift the wrong wide of a post soon after. It was a relentless assault. After 24 minutes, a Mahrez shot was deflected into the path of Sterling, who tried to lift it over Darlow, the Newcastle goalkeeper getting a hand to the ball to pat it down. A minute later, he produced another fine save when Mahrez put Sterling through.
After half-time, circumstances changed a little. Bruce switched from a back five to a back four and Newcastle became more positive as a result. Indeed, they almost scored. It was the 66th minute, Allan Saint-Maximin crossed from the right, Nicolas Otamendi fell over in the middle, leaving Dwight Gayle, on for Carroll a minute earlier, unguarded in the middle. He was no more than eight yards from goal and in the perfect position to deliver an almost comical smash and grab raid. Instead, he shot over.
It was hard to care. Newcastle’s progress to Wembley, their search for a trophy, has long been depicted as one of football’s great quixotic ideals. But this was not a performance with any kind of romance. The underdogs were not the romantics here. The real romantics won.
NEWCASTLE UNITED (5-4-1): Darlow 6; Manquillo 5, Schar 5, Lascelles 6.5, Fernandez 5.5, Rose 6.5 (Lazaro 75min, 6); Almiron 6 (Joelinton 65, 6), Hayden 5 (M Longstaff 79), S Longstaff 5, Saint-Maximin 6 (Yedlin 74, 6); Carroll 6.5 (Gayle 65, 5). Subs not used: Dubravka, Shelvey, Muto, Krafth. Booked: Joelinton, Carroll. Manager: Steve Bruce 6.
MANCHESTER CITY (4-3-3): Bravo 6; Walker 7 (Cancelo 71, 6), Otamendi 6, Laporte 7, Mendy 7; De Bruyne 7.5 (Rodri 71, 6), Gundogan 7, D Silva 7 (B Silva 64, 6.5); Mahrez 6.5 (Foden 64, 7), Jesus 6.5, STERLING 8.
Subs not used: Ederson, Stones, Zinchenko, Sane, Harwood-Bellis. Booked: None.
Manager: Pep Guardiola 7. Referee: Lee Mason 6.
THEY often contain intriguing mini-dramas, games like these. Spin-offs to the main show. The headline action might have been happening out of shot but diverting eyes away from Andy Carroll was a challenge — as his frustration grew at Newcastle’s aimlessness. Every high ball was an event. A crumb for Carroll, a castaway on an island with only two other occupants, Manchester City’s centre halves. A story of one man’s anguish, with nothing to savour. All of his mates were 60 yards away and that felt like miles, Newcastle too occupied with plugging holes in their leaking boat to help the man carrying the club’s FA Cup hopes alone. Newcastle have taken four Premier League points off City in the past two seasons playing this way at St James’ Park. Without the baying crowd, though, they lacked the energy to get close to their lonely striker. Support from the wings, something Steve Bruce’s game plan relied on, was non-existent. City strangled the life out of Newcastle, Carroll reduced at one point to placing hands on hips on the halfway line and just standing to watch the visitors pick their way through midfield. The most frustrating thing for Bruce, and definitely for the striker making a first start since December, is that Carroll (below) was Newcastle’s best player — but was not afforded the tools to inflict damage. The hosts had 18 per cent of possession in the first half, while Carroll won the majority of his headers and was causing problems. That is what he does, his unorthodox facial hair — possibly a tribute to actor Billy Fane, his manager mused — somehow adding a little extra menace. Pep Guardiola knew what was coming, whether via Carroll or Joelinton. An imposing forward would need dealing with, hence Aymeric Laporte and Nicolas Otamendi were chosen at the back. The two most physical defenders at the club had a job on their hands. There felt like added purpose when City’s fitness coach Lorenzo Buenaventura threw up balls to attack in the warm-up, an exercise beneficial for picking up the flight against the backdrop of seats, but lacking the forearm flying into your neck. Carroll made sure Laporte knew what that felt like within seconds of this painfully one-sided quarter-final. Laporte appeared shaken for some minutes afterwards, uncertain when beating Carroll to a comfortable ball on halfway and miscuing his first touch out for a throw. Newcastle’s main crime was a failure to capitalise on these chinks. Carroll purposefully collapsed the scrum with Otamendi, winning a free-kick 35 yards from goal, only for Sean Longstaff to cross into the stand. The hosts did improve, throwing support closer to Carroll while the 31-year-old continued to batter City’s defence. Laporte went down again after feeling the full impact of that forearm. Carroll was just the right side of dirty to make his contribution worthwhile and that must be something Bruce took away from this. Yet to score during his second spell on Tyneside, Carroll has been beating the manager’s door down about a lack of starts and may still have a part to play after signing a new one-year contract. But yesterday he was lonely. And
that was sad. JACK GAUGHAN at St James’ Park