Lights go out on another chance for silverware
HUMILIATION is a constant companion at the shoulder of a desperately inadequate Newcastle United.
Steve Bruce has become the master of ridicule. A man who manages to constantly heap scorn and ridicule upon his own head and in doing so infuriates his fellow Geordies.
After this latest dire, puerile attempt at salvation Bruce stands accused alongside hated owner Mike Ashley, the architect of two relegations. Heaven help us if that fight is also lost come the season’s end.
United go from bad to worse. Now having been bundled out of the League Cup with Wembley in sight but not an ounce of defiance shown, the bottom has dropped out of the season before Christmas has arrived.
What are we left with? Premier League matches against Manchester City and Liverpool next, another desperate fight to remain the poor relations at football’s top table, and an FA Cup tie away to Arsenal.
And what had we here? A quarter-final tie against once again lowerdivision opposition, this time from the Championship, whose manager made a whopping six changes from their normal line up, while Newcastle went with their strongest possible side yet the best team won.
Is there anything that stirs these players into frantic application? Are there any clever tactics, direction, or shrewdness coming from manager and coaching staff who work with this squad every day of the week?
Brentford showed their priority is promotion by voluntarily leaving out the Championship’s leading goalscorer and former Newcastle United player Ivan Toney, their regular keeper, and other quality forward Bryan Mbeumo while Bruce, knowing he was in the last chance saloon, stuck all his big
The League Cup dream of ‘76 died in west London, where yet again a heavy door slammed on any hopes of silverware
names in the fray.
What an opportunity presented itself, but just as against Fulham when another golden chance was presented United proved incapable of scoring from open play.
Bruce had boasted prior to these last two fixtures that United had “a wonderful opportunity” to reach 20 points in the league and the semifinal of a domestic competition. True, but what did we get? Tepid, timid, tip-toeing. That’s what.
The best player on the pitch Josh Da Silva deservedly scored the winning goal just after the hour mark which triggered a desperate game of blind man’s bluff from Bruce. He finished with four full frontal strikers on the pitch – Callum Wilson, Dwight Gayle, Joelinton and Andy Carroll – but the only trouble is that all apart from Wilson carry water pistols not a cannon.
Not one of the trio has scored more than a single time in the Premier League.
The League Cup dream of ‘76 died in west London, where yet again a heavy door slammed on any hopes of long-awaited silverware.
Only once in the 60-year history of this particular domestic competition have Newcastle made it to Wembley.
Bruce was a ball boy that day in 1976 but he was never going back as a Magpie manager. The busy Bees from the Championship saw to that and let us put to bed all talk of United having a real go in the domestic cups since his arrival.
They reached the quarterfinals of the FA Cup last season by beating Rochdale and Oxford only after replays and then a Championship side West Bromwich before going out to the first top-flight opposition they faced.
To get the quarter-finals in this League Cup campaign, United only had overcome lower-league opposition in the form of Blackburn, Morecambe and Newport County before being eliminated without meeting Premier League rivals. In other words those who make the draws have been exceptionally kind but United have failed to help themselves. This is not progress in reaching two quarter-finals. It is luck.