Isak sends City out of Carabao Cup

IF Pep Guardiola did not particularly relish receiving a reminder that, sometimes, possession can be overrated, Eddie Howe saw his Newcastle team transformed by the halftime introduction of Bruno Guimarães and Anthony Gordon.

That pair made a mockery of Manchester City’s earlier domination, paving the way for Alexander Isak’s second-half winner to earn Howe’s side a fourth-round trip to Manchester United. Not to mention ensuring that “Gulf derby” bragging rights belong to Saudi Arabia.

Guardiola departed Tyneside mildly irked by some of the officiating, which he felt insufficiently protected his City players, but he did not arrive in the best of moods either.

The club’s failure to organise a plane to fly the team back to Manchester dictated that they faced a fatiguing three-hour coach journey home. Yet if the Catalan was suitably unhappy about that he seemed relatively sanguine about his team’s first defeat of the season.

“Congratulations to Newcastle,” he said. “We were brilliant in the first half but they increased their intensity and aggression and kicking. Bruno [Guimarães] was important for them, Joelinton too. I don’t know how many fouls they did but they are a top side, a very strong side.”

Significantly, while Guardiola made eight changes, Howe made 10 alterations to his starting XI with Nick Pope the sole survivor from the team that kicked off last Sunday’s 8-0 demolition of Sheffield United.

At least all this mutual reshuffling allowed City’s Kalvin Phillips and Newcastle’s Sandro Tonali to find themselves in direct midfield combat, although Tonali spent most of the first half watching City pass the ball around him with metronomic efficiency.

Eventually all that monopolisation of possession resulted in a clear-cut chance involving Oscar Bobb’s deft reverse pass picking out Julián Álvarez.

Pope saved with an outstretched right foot. With Howe’s players penned firmly into their own half, City seemed utterly irrepressible.

Not to mention capable of outmanoeuvring their hosts at almost every turn.

The crowd fretted but they had something to cheer when Paul Dummett, making a rare central defensive start, made a goalpreventing tackle to halt Jack Grealish in his tracks. Dummett

excelled throughout, reminding everyone why he was such a favourite of Rafael Benítez’s.

Ditto the debut-making Tino Livramento, who successfully blunted Grealish’s attacking edge.

“Paul Dummett was absolutely outstanding,” said Howe, who now faces a repeat of last season’s final defeat against Manchester United.

“The first half was very difficult but when we brought high-level players on the balance was better and we posed City problems.”

Even so, Newcastle very nearly assumed a counter-attacking lead as the interval approached. — Guardian Sport.