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Hope For Newcastle dept. Not only are Manchester City two goals to the good, they’re also coming into this match in a better frame of mind than their opponents. Shipping a two-goal lead at Tottenham may not be ideal, but it’s a whole lot better than dominating Liverpool for half an hour before crumbling to a 4-1 defeat. So the hosts are strong favourites to progress to the final against Arsenal. However, here’s what happened the last time City and Toon met at the Etihad in the League Cup …
… so should Newcastle pull off another result like that tonight, we’ll be headed to 30 minutes of extra time and penalties! It’s something of a long shot, mind you: that match also stands as Newcastle’s last win at the Etihad, since when they’ve made 11 visits and lost every single time, to the cumulative tune of 37-3. For the record, their last goal here was scored by DeAndre Yedlin in September 2018. So yes, that concludes our Hope For Newcastle section. Erm.
Manchester City make four changes to the side they named for the first leg at St James’ Park three weeks ago. Omar Marmoush, Rayan Aït-Nouri, Nico González and Tijjani Reijnders take the places of Erling Haaland and Max Alleyne, who drop to the bench, and Bernardo Silva and Jérémy Doku, who miss out altogether.
Newcastle make six changes from the first leg. Aaron Ramsdale, Kieran Trippier, Dan Burn, Sandro Tonali, Joe Willock and Nick Woltemade start; Nick Pope, Jacob Murphy and Yoane Wissa are on the bench as a result, while Joelinton, Lewis Miley and captain Bruno Guimarães are absent.
The teams: Haaland benched, Woltemade starts
Manchester City: Trafford, Nunes, Khusanov, Ake, O’Reilly, Gonzalez, Semenyo, Foden, Reijnders, Ait Nouri, Marmoush.
Subs: Donnarumma, Dias, Haaland, Cherki, Rodri, Nypan, McAidoo, Alleyne, Lewis.
Newcastle United: Ramsdale, Thiaw, Botman, Burn, Trippier, Ramsey, Tonali, Hall, Willock, Woltemade, Gordon.
Subs: Pope, Wissa, Barnes, Osula, Elanga, Jacob Murphy, Alex Murphy, Shahar, Neave.
Referee: Tony Harrington (Cleveland).
Preamble
We could do with this game being more entertaining than last night’s overly mannered offering at the Emirates. Like Arsenal, in their first cup final for six years, will care about anyone’s opinion of that. Still, here we are, and the chances of high drama aren’t great, seeing Newcastle are two goals down and away at Manchester City, who Eddie Howe has faced 20 times in his managerial career and lost on 17 of those occasions. But his side did notch a rare win over City three months ago, and Newcastle have knocked them out of the League Cup twice in the last 11 seasons, so there is precedent to clutch at, albeit in straw form. This could be over quite quickly, though if the Toon score first, well, then, let’s see. Kick-off is at 8pm GMT. It, like the VAR at the semi-final stage of this competition, is on.
