With goals from Dan Burn and Sven Botman, Newcastle United is eliminated from the FA Cup. Hold on, what?

With goals from Dan Burn and Sven Botman, Newcastle United is eliminated from the FA Cup. Hold on, what?

 

 

At the Etihad Stadium, Manchester City defeated Newcastle United 2-0, bringing an end to the team’s FA Cup hopes.

 

Eddie Howe’s team barely gave Pep Guardiola’s team a fight in the pouring rain tonight, and the team hasn’t lost at home in over a year.

 

Giving credit where credit is due, there were a few instances in which Newcastle appeared to have some momentum, but these were infrequent since the Magpies were just superior in every department.

 

Manchester City plays with such ease; they seem to take pleasure in all they do. How they can so calmly and accurately pass out from the back, whereas our boys often find it difficult to make the seemingly basic things look effortless.

 

Getty Photographs 2089374649

Getty Photographs

And that was it for Man City’s FA Cup run for another season. They were great, but they were also extremely fortunate.

We do not wish to place too much blame on the boys because, to be honest, we weren’t expecting much more than we received. In fact, the scoreline was more forgiving than we anticipated, and if it weren’t for fortunate deflections, I would not be writing this now and would instead be watching us in extra time.

 

Both of Manchester City’s goals will probably be recorded under Bernardo Silva’s name, but neither would have been scored if it weren’t for our defenders’ deflections.

 

In the first, the ball looped over Martin Dubravka’s head after deflecting off Dan Burn’s thigh. In the second, Sven Botman produced a stunning glancing header to take the ball away from his goalkeeper, who would have probably made the save if Botman hadn’t intervened.

 

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At times, the new organization appeared to function fairly well.

Speaking of Sven Botman, the Dutch tanker was substituted out of the game close to the conclusion due to a knee injury. I’m not sure if it was the same knee that has kept him out for the majority of the season, but if it is, you would think we won’t be seeing him for some time. Even while that may sound harsh, I’m not convinced that’s a bad thing. He hasn’t been at his best since recovering from an injury.

 

Despite some teething issues, we managed to play fairly effectively in the new system, so we question if Eddie Howe will persist with his formation adjustment. We most likely would have scored a goal today if Alexander Isak had been able to handle the ball.

 

Eddie Howe’s four changes shortly after the hour also provided us a makeover. We had a brief period of dominance when we replaced Dan Burn, Anthony Gordon, Sean Longstaff, and Joe Willock with Lewis Hall, Elliot Anderson, Lewis Miley, and Miguel Almiron.

 

Lewis Hall, who was making just his 12th appearance since joining Chelsea on loan, looked respectable, incidentally. Howe’s gaffer may have something to think about for the latter stages of the Premier League after discovering this mysterious man, who has eluded him all season.

 

Sadly, that means that all we have left to play for is the league. Our goal now is to be to claw our way into a European berth, and maybe this training camp in the warm weather will have the same magical effect on our performances that it had in January 2022!