Eddie Howe watched on as his Newcastle United team exited the Carabao Cup against Manchester City.
Two goals down from the first leg at St James’ Park, a mountain to climb.
Newcastle conceded inside seven minutes, as Burn’s challenge saw the ball rebound off Marmoush and a cruel bounce saw the ball bounce over Ramsdale.
Eddie Howe reflecting on that moment: “It was the start that we didn’t want. The first goal, Dan Burn has gone to clear the ball and it has gone off their attacker and gone in. That sums up the start of the game we had…it was the opposite of what we wanted and it took the game away from us.”
Whilst nobody is claiming that Manchester City didn’t deserve to go through, Newcastle United losing 3-1 on the night and 5-1 on aggregate, in no way reflected just how many great goalscoring chances United had over the two matches.
Indeed, James Trafford in the Manchester City goal was their best player over the two legs of the semi-final.
Eddie Howe on his side not taking their chances: “In both games, if you look back, we are frustrated we only scored one goal in two games. We don’t feel we should have lost the first leg 2-0 on the balance of opportunities created, it could have been different, but we accept the reality. The last thing you want to do is to have to chase a game, we were going for the match, we were trying to attack.”
With United two goals down from the first leg, Eddie Howe had no option but to be brave. His team pressing high and going man for man.
Sadly, the opening 32 minutes saw Manchester City score three times as they managed to beat the high press time after time with their quality on the ball. Then at the back, Newcastle didn’t get it right, because as Man City swept forward the attackers were played onside as the defence didn’t cope at key moments, then the hosts carried all the luck as well on top of that.
Eddie Howe on what he witnessed early on: “Really annoyed with the first half display because we pride ourselves on being really organised, whilst tactically we wanted to be able to handle any problem the opposition gave us. But that first half…I just don’t think we were good enough. Our duels were off and that gave us huge problems, we didn’t defend well at all, I think.”
The last thing Eddie Howe needed with such a packed difficult schedule, was to pick up any more injuries.
So when Anthony Gordon was forced off just before half-time it heaped even more misery on the night.
Eddie Howe asked about Gordon: “It looks like hamstring injury but I don’t think it looks too bad.”