Newcastle United crashed out of their second competition in less than seven days thanks to late drama once again.
After crashing out of Europe last week, Newcastle are now out of the Carabao Cup after Chelsea left it late to shatter Geordie hearts.
Mykhailo Mudryk scored a second-half stoppage time goal to take the game to penalties where Mauricio Pochettino's men put away some of the best penalties you'll ever see while Kieran Trippier and Matt Ritchie missed for the Magpies.
In truth it was a bad night for Newcastle who barely saw any of the ball. Callum Wilson put the visitors ahead in the first half after captialising on a terrible mistake by Benoit Badiashile, but that was pretty much it as far as attacking highlights go for Newcastle.
Newcastle defended resiliently for 92 minutes and had we hung on just a bit more it would have been maybe the ugliest win in recent memory, but Kieran Trippier once again cost us a game with a costly mistake. It's time for him to be rested properly, we know he's better than this.
He was given the chance to be a hero in the shootout but didn't get anywhere near any of Chelsea's four penalties. During the 90 minutes, he was called into action a few times and made one very decent stop, but his distribution was fairly poor throughout.
Krafthu put in a decent shift defensively but was struggling with a knock towards the end of the first half and was brought off for Trippier at the break. He had a tough assignment up against Sterling but battled well, though his use of the ball was disappointing.
The captain stood up well under a severe examination in a contest where the front players did next to nothing to relieve the pressure off him and the rest of the back four. He did get caught flat-footed on a couple of occasions but wasn't punished by our wasteful opponents.
It was fantastic to see him back in the starting lineup and his half-time substitution was pre-planned. He didn't look completely sharp and was caught on his heels a few times, while his use of the ball wasn't the greatest. Still, this was a solid enough return.
He didn't get much opportunity to bomb forwards due to the nature of the game and he was given a stern examination defensively by Palmer and later Sterling. Neither got much change out of him at all and he was better in possession than anyone else in black and white.
He was absolutely gassed by the midway point of the second half and did well to make it to the end, but there's no doubt that it affected his performance. Having started very brightly he faded more and more as the game went on and his distribution suffered.
We don't know where he gets his energy from, but he was one of the very few still charging around closing down blue shirts in the dying stages of the game. He tucked his penalty home very tidily, but he probably won't be happy with the offensive side of his game.
Longy hasn't been great since returning from injury but it typically takes him a little while to get fully up to speed. This was one of his better displays of late, still, but possibly because the game required him to do little else but harry opponents and narrow angles.
We completely understand that Miggy must be shattered, but by God, he was tragic again here from an attacking perspective. As always, there was endless running and closing down, but we needed so much more from him in the rare moments we had possession. Also, what was with that shot at the end of the game? Foolish.
Scored a brilliant opening goal that was largely all his own doing and tucked away his penalty in the shootout, but was so, so poor in terms of leading the line. He missed multiple through-ball opportunities at 1-0 and won 0/13 duels, piling pressure on his teammates.
We're not sure why he came out again after the break when he was already struggling with injury and it was difficult viewing watching him trying to sprint in the second half. He was the best of the front three in open play, even with the knock he was carrying.
We didn't think it could get much worse for Trippier after the Everton game, but this was the poorest performance from any Newcastle player this season. Aside from the shocking error for the equaliser and the missed penalty, he completed just six of 18 attempted passes.
He barely put a foot wrong after replacing Botman at half-time and looked distraught when Mudryk scored. Added leadership and aggression to the backline to hold Chelsea at bay for long periods of a second half in which we couldn't get a sniff of possession.
We wrote the same after his last extended cameo from the bench, but there's just no way he should be anywhere near the pitch for a Premier League side. He's never been anything but reliable from the penalty spot, but even that quality deserted him tonight.
Our away following will get to make use of the most unique stadium entrance in the Premier League on Saturday, as Eddie Howe takes his side to Kenilworth Road to face off with Luton Town. It's another old-fashioned 3 p.m. kick-off with no live television coverage in the UK.
The Hatters sit 18th in the table with nine points but have easily been the most competitive of the three promoted teams. They'll no doubt be tricky opponents but these are the kind of games we need to be winning if we're serious about a second successive top-four finish.
Howay the lads!
PL | GD | PTS | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
1 |
Manchester City
|
9 | 11 | 23 |
2 |
Liverpool
|
9 | 12 | 22 |
3 |
Arsenal
|
9 | 7 | 18 |
4 |
Aston Villa
|
9 | 5 | 18 |
5 |
Chelsea
|
9 | 8 | 17 |
6 |
Brighton
|
9 | 4 | 16 |
7 |
Nottingham Forest
|
9 | 4 | 16 |
8 |
Tottenham Hotspur
|
9 | 8 | 13 |
9 |
Brentford
|
9 | 0 | 13 |
10 |
Fulham
|
9 | 0 | 12 |
11 |
Bournemouth
|
9 | 0 | 12 |
12 |
Newcastle United
|
9 | -1 | 12 |
13 |
West Ham United
|
9 | -3 | 11 |
14 |
Manchester United
|
9 | -3 | 11 |
15 |
Leicester
|
9 | -4 | 9 |
16 |
Everton
|
9 | -6 | 9 |
17 |
Crystal Palace
|
9 | -5 | 6 |
18 |
Ipswich
|
9 | -11 | 4 |
19 |
Wolves
|
9 | -13 | 2 |
20 |
Southampton
|
9 | -13 | 1 |