Manchester City dominate Newcastle to earn FA Cup semi-final against Arsenal
As Pep Guardiola looked forward to a semi-final reunion with his old friend Mikel Arteta and his Arsenal side, Newcastle United renewed their unwanted acquaintance with an all too familiar foe.
Cup failure has become such a part of the club’s modern history that they last won a trophy – the Fairs Cup – in 1969. Steve Bruce had hoped to change that after guiding Newcastle to their first FA Cup quarter-final in 15 years but, propelled by Kevin De Bruyne’s penalty and a gorgeous Raheem Sterling goal, Guardiola’s largely excellent Manchester City ensured the wait goes on.
The enduring hope on Tyneside is the next time City visit Gallowgate the home team will be under Saudi Arabian majority control and the silverware cupboard set for a restock. For the moment, though, the Premier League has consigned Newcastle to another type of thoroughly frustrating wait, three months this time, as it ponders whether to approve a potentially transformative £300m club takeover.
Bruce has recently experimented, fairly successfully, with a tactical makeover, namely a back four, but he reverted to a 3-4-2-1 starting formation here. City appeared certain to be in wounded-animal mode after Liverpool’s title win so a measure of caution seemed prudent; which is not to say
Newcastle were entirely risk-averse.
The decision to give Andy Carroll his first start of 2020 translates as a gamble in anyone’s language but, quite apart from wanting to reward the striker for losing five kilograms during lockdown, Bruce decided his very own divine ponytail had a better chance of highlighting City’s defensive vulnerabilities than the dropped Joelinton.
Sure enough Carroll’s first aerial duel with Aymeric Laporte left the visiting defender supine and requiring prolonged treatment before finally being helped, rather gingerly, to his feet.
Generally, though, City were not so much in control as omnipotent, meaning Carroll had precious little opportunity to probe any susceptibilities at the back. Instead they hogged the ball to such an embarrassing extent it raised the question as to whether Newcastle’s inability to retain possession was down to the sheer quality of the opposition or the restrictions imposed by their formation.
If the answer was principally the former but probably a bit of both, there was little doubt about the inviting early chance missed by Riyad Mahrez – and with his preferred left foot, too. It came at the end of a lovely passing move conjured by De Bruyne – celebrating his 29th birthday – and David Silva before Mahrez’s shot curled narrowly off target.
Already, Newcastle looked in acute peril of being overwhelmed by City’s seemingly inexorable tide of bewitching one and two-touch passing. Karl Darlow, enjoying a rare start in goal in place of Martin Dubravka, needed to react with alacrity to divert Sterling’s shot after Mahrez’s initial effort deflected into the England forward’s path.
With Silva and De Bruyne supreme and Claudio Bravo virtually redundant, Bruce’s players were pushed ever deeper and, at times, looked to have abandoned the struggle to escape their own half. Indeed the only surprise was that it took 37 minutes for City to open the scoring. Given the aesthetics that had come before, the goal should really have come from open play but, instead, it was stroked past Darlow by De Bruyne from the penalty spot after Fabian Schär used both hands to push Gabriel Jesus over following Kyle Walker’s cross.
De Bruyne sent Darlow the wrong way, emblematically mirroring the experience the keeper’s outfield colleagues were going through.
Bruce reverted to a back four after the interval with Schär moving into central midfield and Sean Longstaff pushed forward to the base of a diamond system. Newcastle responded by, at long last, pressing Guardiola’s players into a few places they did not necessarily want to be.
Suddenly Allan Saint-Maximin was able to use his pace and skill to get in behind the visiting defence, albeit occasionally. He was finally operating in a framework that liberated him to run at Walker and sometimes beat him.
Although City remained superior, parity would have been restored had Dwight Gayle – newly on for Carroll – not a sitter over the bar from eight yards after meeting Saint-Maximin’s low cross. It represented a reprieve for Nicolás Otamendi, whose slapdash pass was gleefully intercepted by the French winger.
As Gayle looked both mortified and inconsolable, Laporte demonstrated that City’s centre-backs can play a bit courtesy of a splendid cross-field pass to Phil Foden. The substitute displayed an exquisite touch before playing in Sterling who, thanks to Benjamin Mendy’s decoy overlap, had time to cut in, shift the ball on to his right foot and direct a curving shot beyond Darlow. Cue the imminent renewal of two very different, thoroughly contrasting, types of old acquaintance.