The Good, The Bad, and The Average #12: NUFC player ratings vs. Chelsea (h) [LC4]

Newcastle United marched into the quarter-finals of the Carabao Cup for a third successive year with a convincing 2-0 victory over Chelsea's second string, with Alexander Isak and Joe Willock—we refuse to call that an own goal—scoring for Eddie Howe's side.

In truth, the visitors played right into our hands with their baffling attempts to play out from the back. We always look like a different side when teams invite us to press them in their 18-yard box and once we got two goals up we never looked like losing.

There were top performances from Fabian Schär, Emil Krafth, Alexander Isak, and Sandro Tonali, but nobody in black and white stood out for the wrong reasons, which makes a very pleasant change for this season! Here's how we rated them all, with a high of '8' and a low of '5'.

Serena Taylor/Newcastle United

The Good

We have to begin with Eddie Howe, who got pretty much everything right on a massively high-pressure evening. He rotated just enough to rest key players while not weakening the team too much, he picked arguably our best front three, and he tried Sandro Tonali as the deepest of the three central midfielders and didn't bring him off until stoppage time!

Of the players, Emil Krafth and Fabian Schär went head-to-head for our Man of the Match award, with Schär just pipping Krafth due to his larger impact on the contest as a whole. We can't get over how reliable Emil is considering how little football he plays, though, and he looked like the fittest man on the pitch in the dying stages when charging around all over.

Ahead of those two, Sandro Tonali and Joe Willock showed enough to put themselves into contention for starts against Arsenal at the weekend. Tonali got a chance as the 'number 6' and was great on the whole, though he remains a bit less secure in possession than Bruno. Willock added a lot to the party with his driving runs and essentially scored the second.

Anthony Gordon, Alexander Isak, and Joelinton were named as the front three and each contributed to the victory. They pressed excellently as a unit with Gordon, in particular, a menace to Chelsea's plodding backline, Isak scored a fine goal and set up another big chance, while Joelinton seemed to relish the physical battle up against Axel Disasi.

Of the substitutes, Bruno Guimarães and Will Osula made the biggest impact off the bench. Bruno took a while to get up to speed but took the proverbial out of the Blues on numerous occasions, winning a succession of soft free kicks to help us see out the result with ease. Osula was a handful and was unlucky with his 20-yard shot that hit the post.

Serena Taylor/Newcastle United

The Bad

Okay, so this was Chelsea's second string, but had they ever watched us play football before? Their tactics in the first half effectively gifted us the victory, with Filip Jørgensen showing about as much passing ability as Nick Pope, and the likes of Disasi, Tosin 'Greedy Bastard' Adarabioyo, and Benoît Badiashile looking like fish out of water trying to play Enzo Maresca's style. Enzo Fernandez was pure garbage, which was delightful.

Howe likely wanted Dan Burn to come on and shore things up in the last 20 minutes, but our giant seemed to have other ideas. His first act was to slip and let Chelsea in for a decent chance, while his contribution in possession was severely lacking in composure. We didn't think Lloyd Kelly was as good as some have said, but he's got to be putting Burn under pressure for a start in the league based on this game.

Serena Taylor/Newcastle United

The Average

Lloyd Kelly and Lewis Hall put in opposite performances on the left side of our defence, with Kelly a bit lax overall but crucial with his blocking at times. His one from Christopher Nkunku in the second half was almost as good as a goal. Hall started the game brightly but struggled badly in the second period, especially when Noni Madueke came on to replace Kiernan Deswbury-Hall.

Behind them, Nick Pope appeared to have buttered his gloves again with his handling from high crosses into the box incredibly suspect. Luckily, his shot-stopping ability hasn't deserted him, as he was called into action a good few times to earn his clean sheet. Surely he's under instructions to punch it because we remember him being brilliant at commanding his box in his first season.

Sean Longstaff celebrated his birthday with a decent enough performance and the team in general continues to perform better as a unit when he's on the pitch. We're still not sure that should be enough to see him starting against Arsenal given the other options we have, but he did his chances of a league recall no real harm.

Tino Livramento got a rare chance to play on the right wing off the bench and did alright, though his end product continues to frustrate. Finally, it was just brilliant to see Lewis Miley back after such a long layoff. We haven't forgotten how superb he was last season and he looks about a stone heavier this time around, which bodes well.

Oh yeah, we almost forgot about Chris Kavanagh. That's probably a good thing for a referee. He was fine.

Serena Taylor/Newcastle United

The Breakdown

This was one of the hardest MOTM decisions we've ever had to make...

The XI

Nick Pope – 6

Emil Krafth – 8

Fabian Schär (c) – 8 ⭐️

Lloyd Kelly – 6

Lewis Hall – 6 (off 72')

Sean Longstaff – 6

Sandro Tonali – 8 (off 90+2')

Joe Willock – 7 (off 63')

Anthony Gordon – 7 (off 72')

Alexander Isak – 8 (off 63')

Joelinton – 7

The Subs

Will Osula – 7 (on 63')

Bruno Guimarães – 8 (on 63')

Tino Livramento – 6 (on 72')

Dan Burn – 5 (on 72')

Lewis Miley – 6 (on 90+2')

The Gaffer

Eddie Howe – 8

The Opposition

Chelsea – 5

The Ref

Chris Kavanagh – 6

Serena Taylor/Newcastle United

The Next

Arsenal are the visitors to St James' on Saturday afternoon for the sickeningly early 12.30 p.m. (GMT) kick-off. The match will be shown live on TNT. What a shame it won't be under the lights like last season.

Still, we suppose we'd settle for another highly controversial 1-0 win over Legohead Arteta and his multi-million pound Stoke City tribute act...

Howay the lads!