The Times - UK (2020-06-29)

FA CUP SEMI-FINAL DRAW

Both ties to be played July 18-19

Man United

v Chelsea

Arsenal

v Man City

Match briefing

It wouldn’t have

reflected the balance

of the game, but

Dwight Gayle had

a golden chance.

His close-range shot

flew embarrassingly

over, ending

Newcastle’s hopes

66

Just two minutes later,

Raheem Sterling

settled any remaining

doubt, cutting in from

the left and curling his

right-footed shot from

outside the box past

the dive of goalkeeper

Karl Darlow

68

covering, bent a curling right-footed

shot beyond Darlow.

The game returned to type then,

quick, one-touch football, the fizz of a

team who may have lost their title but

refuse to give up on this season and

the glory it could yet contain.

KEY MOMENT

It was all Manchester

City in the first half, but

it wasn’t until Fabian

Schär pushed Gabriel

Jesus to concede a

penalty that City made

it tell. Kevin De Bruyne

scored from the spot

40 yards to Mahrez, he in turn

advanced and found Sterling, the ball

zig-zagging its way through the

Newcastle side.

Sterling was perhaps 30 yards from

goal; with Manquillo sat way off, he

advanced, and, with Joelinton

Sterling’s strike
sealed the win for
a ruthless City

Key men in recent weeks, Martin

Dubravka, Jonjo Shelvey and

Joelinton, were all on the bench.

The target man, Andy Carroll,

was chosen for his first start

in 2020. Newcastle did not

hide behind any pretence

of invention or subtle

play.

City have scars from

this stadium in recent

years, a defeat by the

former manager Rafa

Benítez, a draw this

campaign against Bruce.

There seemed a fairly

forcible message from

Guardiola to make sure

there was never even the

slightest modicum of

possibility that such a result

would be repeated.

City charged from their

stool from the very first

moment Lee Mason

blew his whistle and

took every ounce of

oxygen and space

from their opponent.

Forty seconds had not

quite been played when

they won their first corner. By the

third minute came a desperate tackle

from Jamaal Lascelles to deny

Sterling.

Wherever Newcastle looked they

had problems. Bruce reverted to a

five-man defence that he does not

like, but ripped that up at half-time.

The relentlessness of the men in

peach and yellow was suffocating.

Benjamin Mendy struck the side-

netting in the 11th minute, Riyad

Mahrez struck a shot that flew over

the crossbar a minute later, and then

a De Bruyne shot deflected into the

arms of Darlow.

Gabriel Jesus failed to redirect a

driven Kyle Walker cross, Mahrez

fizzed a shot wide after a Federico

Fernández mistake, Darlow parried a

shot from Sterling and then Jesus

failed to direct a De Bruyne cross

goalwards, from around eight yards.

That is a form of context for Gayle’s

miss. City should have been out of

sight long before he entered the pitch,

in the 64th minute.

The surprise was that the opening

goal took 37 minutes to arrive, and

that it was down to reckless defending

from Fabian Schar, the additional

defender brought in to the team.

Walker crossed from deep on the City

right and Schar put two hands into

the back of Jesus. From the penalty

spot, De Bruyne — who was

celebrating his 29th birthday —

effortlessly clipped a right-footed

shot beyond Darlow, who dived the

wrong way.

Bruce reverted to a four-man

defence for the second half. It had an

impact. Newcastle had more bodies in

forward positions, with Schar now

sitting in front of the back four, and

when Otamendi erred in the 66th

minute, Gayle had already replaced

the increasingly frustrated Carroll.

The City defender played a

diagonal pass to Allan Saint-Maximin

and the French winger, so dangerous

since the return after lockdown, took

his time before firing a low cross

across the visiting side’s six-yard box.

Gayle hit an instinctive right-footed

shot from about six yards that flew

over the crossbar.

Bruce and his No 2 Steve Agnew

span on their heels in despair, each

man with their head in their hands.

The moment had gone and by the

time a further two minutes had been

played, the game was over, and

Guardiola and his team had reached

the FA Cup semi-final, where a draw

that took place during half-time had

paired them with Arsenal.

It was a fine goal to seal victory.

Claudio Bravo, preferred to Ederson

for the FA Cup tie, played a short

pass to Aymeric Laporte. The

defender played an angled ball about

It would be wrong to overlook the
beauty of what Manchester City
created, their dominance and their
brilliance, to focus for too long on the
second-half miss by Dwight Gayle
and what impact that might have had
on the FA Cup and a one-sided
afternoon when those on Tyneside
will have been relieved for large parts
they could not watch in person.
City were so good and Newcastle
United were so bad that the gulf
between the two sides was so huge
that at times it did not appear that
they were playing the same game.
It was only Sergio Agüero’s absence
and the profligate nature of the
visiting team’s finishing that meant
Steve Bruce and his side held an
unlikely foothold in the game until
the 66th minute, trailing only to
Kevin De Bruyne’s first-half penalty.
Gayle’s miss, from about six yards,
provoked Alan Shearer in the BBC
studio to call it a “sitter”. For the
Newcastle dugout, the game briefly
changed from being something they
could not bear to watch to
something they simply did not
want to.
The substitute somehow
managed to shoot over the bar,
after a mistake from Nicolás
Otamendi, and within two
minutes Raheem Sterling had
added a second. The miss was
something for Bruce to hold on
to, but it was a morsel on a
day when his side were
outclassed.
There is an FA Cup
semi-final for City now, and
they will fancy it against
Arsenal; they also still
have the second leg of a
round-of-16 tie against
Real Madrid to complete
in the Champions
League.
The season certainly
did not finish for them
at Stamford Bridge on

Thursday night, when Liverpool took

their Premier League title.

Newcastle had nothing in response

to the mesmerising Manchester

carousel in those opening 45 minutes.

The bright colours of their strip,

yellow and peach, did not help. It was

like the flashing whir of a fairground

ride and the home side seemed

desperate to get off.

It seems at odds to what Pep

Guardiola creates to crush the

aesthetic delight of such clever and

incisive football down to numbers, but

they highlight the desperation of

what Steve Bruce’s players went

through.

By the 12th minute, Manchester

City had recorded 88 per cent

possession of the ball. By the half-

hour mark, they had passed it to

each other 188 times, compared with

Newcastle’s 15, and four of them

were down to the goalkeeper

Karl Darlow.

Bruce had surprised and

disappointed with his team selection.

MARTIN HARDY

Gayle’s glaring miss lets

2 2GG Monday June 29 2020 | the times

thegame FA C u p

02

De Bruyne (pen) 37

Sterling 68

Newcastle

United

Manchester

City

24% 76%

POSSESSION

14

SHOTS ON TARGET

12 10

FOULS

RATINGS

Newcastle United (5-4-1): K Darlow 6 — J

Manquillo 5, F Schar 5, J Lascelles 6, F Fernández

6, D Rose 6 (V Lazaro 74min) — A Saint-Maximin 6

(Yedlin 74), S Longstaff 6, I Hayden 5 (M Longstaff

79), M Almirón 5 (Joelinton 64, 4) — A Carroll 5

(Gayle 64, 3). Booked Joelinton, Carroll.

Manchester City (4-3-3): C Bravo 7 — K Walker 7

(J Cancelo 71), N Otamendi 6, A Laporte 7,

B Mendy 6 — K De Bruyne 8 (Rodri 71),

I Gündogan 8, D Silva 7 (B Silva 64, 5) — R

Mahrez 8 (P Foden 64, 6), G Jesus 7, R Sterling 8.

Referee L Mason.

Gayle

Saint-Maximin

GAYLE’S SITTER

With Newcastle trailing 1-0,

Saint-Maximin crossed from the

right to an unmarked Gayle, who

sent his shot over the crossbar

6

All six away teams in this

weekend’s FA Cup and

Premier League games won

For much of the game De Bruyne’s penalty was the difference between the sides

37 mins