NEWCASTLE, England — The “never” men beat the “nearly” men. Newcastle United now stand a Carabao Cup final away from ending their interminable 56-year-old wait for a major trophy while questions grow about Arsenal’s ability to cap their progress with silverware.
There was an irresistible determination about Newcastle from the outset on Wednesday. Buoyed by a 2-0 lead from the first leg, St James’ Park filled to bursting point under the lights with supporters desperate to free themselves from the burden of almost six decades in darkness.
Alexander Isak tormented the normally unflappable centre-back pairing of William Saliba and Gabriel Magalhães. Newcastle switched systems, defended in numbers, and looked lethal on the break.
The combination overwhelmed Arsenal, as Newcastle swept them aside with goals from Jacob Murphy and Anthony Gordon to win 2-0. This sets up a Wembley showpiece against either Liverpool or Tottenham when the chance to win the trophy that eluded them in the 2023 final against Manchester United will again be within their grasp.
The Gunners started the season eyeing bigger prizes but getting this close to success only to be denied yet again adds to the body of evidence against them being capable of getting over the line.
Twice they have pushed Manchester City all the way in the Premier League and twice they were denied. Mikel Arteta won the 2020 FA Cup in his first season with the club but such has been the dramatic overhaul during his time in charge that only one player from the starting lineup that day — Kieran Tierney — is even still at the club.
This current group have become proper Premier League heavyweights and they may still win the title or even the UEFA Champions League. But the sense they are missing something — even with a full list of players once Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Jesus return from injury — only grows on nights like this.
The club’s decision not to sign a striker in January was a judgment call: The right player either wasn’t available or too expensive. Sources told ESPN that they made a bid for Aston Villa forward Ollie Watkins of around £40 million when the asking price was £60m.
They decided not to return with another offer and with longer-term targets including Benjamin Šeško at RB Leipzig and — whisper it quietly — Newcastle’s Isak unavailable, they decided to go with what they have. That is a judgement call that will ultimately define their season. Watching Isak torment Arsenal’s backline here was a painful reminder of what they are missing.
Just days after Gabriel and Saliba marshalled Erling Haaland — who admittedly still scored — to great effect in a 5-1 thrashing of Manchester City, the pair looked incapable of handling Isak’s mixture of intelligent running and technical quality.
The high line had something to do with it. Arsenal felt they had to make the running given the first-leg deficit and Newcastle knew it, changing to a 5-4-1 shape without the ball for the first time this season to invite the visitors onto them and hit on the break.
It was broadly the same game plan with a different system which earned them two 1-0 wins over Arsenal in their last two league visits here and, yet again, invites scrutiny over whether the Gunners are just a touch short of match-winning class in the final third. An injury to Gabriel Martinelli will only exacerbate those concerns as Arteta confirmed afterwards the Brazilian will undergo a scan on his hamstring on Thursday.
Arteta would point to August’s Community Shield triumph to counter accusations of a lack of silverware and they can of course recover from this, starting with a warm-weather training break in Dubai which will feel a lifetime away from the February northeast chill.
“We need to swallow this one, it is a tough one,” said Arteta.
“We had a lot of expectations. We knew the difficulty of the task because of the result we brought from London. but there is nothing we can do right now. What we could do was on the pitch a few minutes ago, now we have to look forward.
“First of all, I think this is going to be a painful one. While we are in Dubai, recharge and go again because we still have a lot to play [for].”
But this was nevertheless a chastening night. The rivalry between these two sides has escalated in recent seasons and evidence of that could be seen in the ferocity of the contest, while it lasted anyway.
Isak had the ball in the net after four minutes with a sumptuous finish ruled out by a tight VAR call for offside. The tie turned in the space of a minute or so as at one end, Martin Ødegaard hit the post when he probably should have scored, and then at the other, Isak raced clear. His sublime left-foot effort hit the post but Murphy found enough stretch within his frame to steer the rebound in via a flick off the opposite post.
Gordon put Newcastle 4-0 up on aggregate after Arsenal made a mess of playing out from the back, with goalkeeper David Raya under-hitting a ball to Declan Rice which Fabian Schär intercepted for Gordon to finish smartly.
Then the party started. “Mikel Arteta, it must be the ball,” sang the gleeful Newcastle fans, in reference to Arteta volunteering the different football used in this competition as a possible reason why Arsenal’s finishing let them down in the first leg four weeks ago.
But no quirk explains the outcome here. Newcastle fully deserved to advance for another crack at glory, summed up the stadium announcer greeting the final whistle with the words: “Book your trains, book your hotels, we’re ga’an to Wembley.”
Newcastle’s path to silverware is clear. Not for the first time, Arsenal’s looks complicated.
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