A moment to savour and delight, finally, for Mauricio Pochettino, who will dance long into the southwest London night. His Chelsea into the Carabao Cup semi-finals and a cruel exit on penalties for a brave Newcastle United. It was so nearly more of the same for the Blues: plenty of promise but ultimately heading for a miserable conclusion to another 90 minutes in this lavish project.
Desperately searching for inspiration, it arrived in unlikely circumstances, with not only another calamitous error from Kieran Trippier, but their much-maligned £88.5m man Mykhailo Mudryk doing the damage. He prodded into the corner in stoppage time and followed it with a calmly-converted penalty in the shootout. Chelsea may just have lift-off under Pochettino on this most thrilling of nights in the Carabao Cup.
