A sticking plaster camouflaging Newcastle’s internal tensions or a potential long-term cure for their problems? Whatever the reality, Eddie Howe’s inconsistent team are a two-legged semi-final away from a potentially transformative Wembley showpiece after two stellar first-half goals from the excellent Sandro Tonali and another from Fabian Schär undid an underwhelming Brentford on a cool, still Tyneside night.
As Tonali controlled the pace of this last-eight tie, displaying an invaluable ability to slow things down when necessary, and Howe’s dream of ending his club’s long decades without a trophy endured, Thomas Frank’s players wilted beneath the floodlights. Long before Yoane Wissa’s academic stoppage-time goal reduced the deficit, they looked to, mentally, have checked in for their flight back to London. Frank was certainly not in a mood for excuses. “Newcastle were the better team,” he said. “We gave three soft goals away, that’s the most disappointing thing.”
Howe could barely stop smiling. “We’ve got our attacking rhythm back,” he said. “And we’re starting to see the best of Sandro. We’ve got a good balance and look creative again.” Rumours are rife that Tonali could be destined for a £45m return to his beloved Milan or a move to Juventus in January but, right now, the Italy midfielder seems pretty indispensable to Howe.
Ever since Newcastle’s manager offered Tonali a slightly deeper role at the heart of midfield – turning him into a flexible No 6 and Bruno Guimarães into more of a No 8 – he and his wonderful passing range have looked near irreplaceable.
Tonali scores the odd goal too, something he reminded everyone of as Nathan Collins cleared a Tino Livramento cross straight into his path and the Italian sent a perfectly calibrated right-foot shot flying beyond Mark Flekken. Collins had originally been named as a substitute but stepped into the starting lineup when Sepp van den Berg injured himself in the warm-up. To Frank’s considerable frustration it was not long before his back three was further reshuffled when Mads Roerslev replaced the hobbling Ethan Pinnock.
By way of exacerbating the visiting gloom, Wissa thought he should have been awarded a penalty when Martin Dubravka, having been rounded, appeared to catch the forward’s heel. Sam Barrott, the referee, was not buying a claim that would have been extremely hard on Howe’s goalkeeper but, had VAR been operational, could conceivably have been upheld. For a short while Newcastle’s manager looked slightly anxious about the manner in which the team’s performance had dipped from a ferociously intense beginning to a rather tentative, distinctly edgy mode as the tie began drifting towards half-time.
As Guimarães collected a booking for treading on Vitaly Janelt’s toes that will sideline him for the first leg of the semi-final, it was becoming easy to see how these sides are level on points in mid-table in the Premier League. Or at least it was until Tonali struck again and Newcastle fans finally felt it safe to recall that, while Frank’s team excel at home, they often exhibit a strange timidity on the road and have yet to win away this season.
Sure enough, memories of Howe’s team surrendering 4-2 in west London earlier this month were almost extinguished as Tonali connected with Anthony Gordon’s looping corner and directed a fabulous cushioned volley past the helpless Flekken. Significantly Brentford’s marking of that dead ball was disrupted by a decoy manoeuvre involving Joelinton who, in a move bearing the hallmark of Howe’s assistant Jason Tindall’s training ground ingenuity, revelled in distracting two defenders. Frank could have done with similar ruthlessness from his players but, instead, they offered precious little menace and appeared to be all out of attacking ideas as Tonali dictated the tempo.
He, and Newcastle, had already done enough to ensure Gallowgate Enders could start daring to dream about the possibility of Howe’s players finally ending a major domestic trophy drought stretching back to 1955 even before Schär tapped in the third after Tonali and Lewis Hall had shots blocked and Guimarães rolled the ball selflessly across the face of goal.
Like Guimarães, the previously booked Schär will miss the semi-final first leg, but maybe, just maybe, this season is destined for a happy ending.
