Our hopes of reaching the Carabao Cup final were ended in the semi-final as Newcastle United followed up their first-leg lead by recording the same scoreline at St James’ Park.
Trailing by two after the first encounter at Emirates Stadium, our task was made even harder when Jacob Murphy opened the scoring on 19 minutes, less than a minute after Martin Odegaard had come close to giving us real hope of turning the tie around when he hit the post.
Anthony Gordon then added a second eight minutes into the second half to agonisingly end our interest in the competition at the final four stage, while the Magpies reached their second League Cup final in three seasons.
Woodwork woes
The Magpies went into this game off the back of successive home losses, but any nerves weren’t on display. Just three minutes in, they thought they’d taken a giant step towards Wembley by grabbing a three-goal aggregate lead.
Sandro Tonali’s pass sent Alexander Isak through on goal and he sent a rocket into the top corner of our net, but VAR came to our rescue by spotting he was marginally offside - a decision which disappointed the home crowd when announced over the speakers by Simon Hooper.
But the game, and ultimately the tie, swung in the space of 51 seconds when the woodwork was struck on three occasions at both ends of the pitch. Our first good sight of goal arrived when a neat flick from Leandro Trossard found Gabriel Martinelli on the edge of the box and he nudged the ball into Odegaard’s path who seemed set to score, but his effort clipped the post and spun wide.
From the resulting goal kick, Isak found Gordon who played it straight back into the path of the striker, who let fly from 25 yards and rattled the crossbar. The ball dropped into Murphy’s path who squeezed it back towards goal, and got some luck as his shot kissed the foot of the post before nestling in the net to put the hosts in firm control.
Desperately needing a quick way back into the contest, within minutes Odegaard dragged a shot wide before Trossard forced Martin Dubravka into an excellent low stop, but our misfortune continued when Martinelli was forced off with an injury after 37 minutes and had to be replaced by Ethan Nwaneri.
Second setback
Five minutes after half-time, Gordon had a great chance to rubber-stamp his team’s spot in the final when he nicked the ball off William Saliba and, with David Raya out of position, tried his luck from 35 yards but his effort curled wide, but three minutes later he was handed another chance - and this time seized it.
Raya attempted to find Declan Rice on the edge of the box but Fabian Schar pressed high and forced a turnover which fell into the path of Gordon, and the winger had the simple task of netting to make it 4-0 on aggregate and end our hopes of reaching Wembley.
After that, we were playing just for pride, but faced with a back five who mopped up every bit of danger on the edge of the box, we found chances to be at a premium.
Rice forced Dubravka into a late save before Raheem Sterling nearly caught the Magpies’ keeper out with a curler from the touchline that needed dealing with, and from the resultant corner Myles Lewis-Skelly nodded over the crossbar, but ultimately the hosts proved to be a thorn in our side as they recorded three wins in a season over ourselves for the first time in their history.
What's next
We now have a 10-day gap between games, with the squad heading off to Dubai for some warm-weather training before returning to these shores in time for a trip to Leicester City on Saturday, February 15. A week later we're back at home when we face West Ham United at Emirates Stadium.
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