THIS 40’S GOT SOMETHING! Old boy Aaron gives Bruce a cup scare
ROCHDALE’S 40-year -old journeyman and teenage whizzkid combined to earn a money-spinning thirdround replay at Newcastle.
In fact, veteran Aaron Wilbraham and kid Luke Matheson came extremely close to helping League One Dale dump Toon out of the FA Cup at the first time of asking.
Yet it had all looked plain sailing for Steve Bruce’s side when Miguel Almiron capped his first cup appearance with an 18th-minute goal, meeting Christian Atsu’s pull-back with a rasping finish.
Newcastle should have had it wrapped up by half-time only for Rochdale’s substitutes to turn this cup-tie on its head.
Matheson, who scored against Manchester United in the Carabao
Cup last September, had been sent on after half an hour to stem the threat of Atsu but he was instrumental in the 79thminute equaliser which sent Spotland wild.
Dancing into the box, he squared the ball to Wilbraham who rolled back the years to skip past Federico Fernandez before beating Martin Dubravka.
It was only the veteran’s second-ever FA
Cup goal, six years after he’d scored for Crystal Palace, but the evergreen striker, in his 28th appearance in the competition, won’t have enjoyed too many of his previous 674 games more.
After being outclassed early on, Rochdale could have won, with the excellent Oliver Rathbone forcing Dubravka into three saves and captain Ian Henderson hitting the outside of the post.
And in injury time, after being set up by Eoghan O’Connell, Rathbone shot agonisingly wide with the goal at his mercy.
“Once we get on a roll, we can be very dangerous and I thought we would win it late in the game,” said Rochdale boss Brian Barry-Murphy.
“But there’s no sense of frustration because we get the chance to go to Newcastle which is somewhere I’ve never been. It’s a huge result for everyone associated with the town and the way we finished, showed what we’re all about.
“The first half was difficult. Perhaps we were a bit surprised by the speed and intensity of Newcastle’s play and it was just a case of reaching half-time with as little damage as possible.
“But I knew we could put things right.”
Atsu was at the heart of eveything good about Newcastle in the opening period, running Rochdale ragged with his bursts down the left.
So dominant was he against Tyler Magloire, the hapless Rochdale full-back was put out of his misery on 30 minutes, replaced by Matheson, who once again shone against Premier League opposition. But Toon record buy Joelinton had another miserable afternoon, with Steve Bruce seemingly losing patience with the Brazilian, whose solitary goal came way back in August.
“Our frailties are pretty obvious,” he said. “We do not score enough goals. We were excellent in the first half, creating chance after chance and I cannot remember them having a kick.
“But we should have put the tie to bed. If you don’t, you run the risk of what happened today. They sent on Wilbraham and the big lad caused us a few problems.”
Joelinton could have had a first-half double.
Five minutes after Almiron broke the deadlock, he raced through the middle only to shoot wide with just keeper Robert
Sanchez to beat.
Then in firsthalf injury-time, he turned sharply inside the box but Sanchez got down well to claw his effort away.
The Brazilian, who also saw a second-half header saved by the keeper, wasn’t the visitors’ only culprit, however.
Newcastle should have doubled their advantage on 39 minutes but Yoshi Muto shot straight at Sanchez after excellent work by DeAndre Yedlin
“You can’t dominate a game like that and miss the chances we did in the first half,” added Bruce.