Sandro Tonali dishes out Italian justice with help from Birthday Boy Nick Woltemade as Newcastle United win at Villa Park
Newcastle United made it back-to-back away wins as they beat Aston Villa 3-1 at Villa Park to book their place in the FA Cup fifth round draw.
It was a game that should be remembered for some of the worst refereeing we've ever seen, but Sandro Tonali stepped up to fill the void left by Bruno Guimaraes in such brilliant fashion tonight that we're going to save all of our bitching about the officials for its very own article. I mean, there was enough to talk about to fill a book.
Aston Villa took a first-half lead via Tammy Abraham, who slotted home a tidy finish from a well-worked free kick. However, the goal shouldn't have stood, but more on that in the next article.
Newcastle dominated possession but, as has been a familiar story this season, couldn't create the chances to really test the Villa back line, until the stroke of half time when Villa goalkeeper Marco Bizot went kamikaze and chopped down Jacob Murphy, denying a goalscoring opportunity, and the referee got his first decision of the evening right by sending off Bizot.
A Sandro Tonali double dished out justice after some terrible decisions from the officials
Newcastle came out for the second half with belief, despite everything going against them for 44 minutes in the previous period, and despite the referee's best attempt to rob the Magpies again, giving a free-kick for a handball that was clearly well inside the area, Newcastle took full advantage on 63 minutes.
Kieran Trippier whipped the ball into the area, and after a spot of head tennis, the ball fell to Sandro Tonali, who rifled a shot goalwards that took a slight nick off Douglas Luiz and into the bottom corner of the net.
Just 13 minutes later, Sandro Tonali was at it again, another shot from roughly the same spot found the same corner of the net; this time, no deflections were needed. His celebrations, running over to hug Eddie Howe, and the sheer elation will go a long way to dispelling the rumours that he wants away.
Big Nick Woltemade put the icing on the cake on 88 minutes
From then on, it was just a case of controlling the game and seeing it out, but fatigue got the better of the Villans, who played some lazy football trying to play out from the back and Joe Willock was on hand to intercept and lay the ball off for Nick Woltemade to blast into the roof of the net on his 24th birthday.
If ever there were two players who really needed to get on the scoresheet, it was Tonali and Woltemade, and to do it away from home in a cup tie was just magnificent.
The Bruno Guimaraes hoodoo isn't properly broken yet as it's in the Premier League that we've not won without him, but this will go a long way to instilling belief that we can put that curse to bed.
What a massive win for the lads ... and now I get to write about Chris Kavanagh.
