We review Wednesday’s semi-final second leg as Guardiola’s side win 3-1 at home to secure place at Wembley<\/p>\n
Football writer Tom Prentki reflects on Wednesday night’s EFL Cup semi-final second leg between Manchester City and Newcastle United.<\/p>\n
Manchester City will play Arsenal<\/a> in next month\u2019s EFL Cup final after Pep Guardiola\u2019s side emphatically beat holders Newcastle United<\/a> 5-1 on aggregate.<\/p>\n The Premier League\u2019s top two will meet in a Wembley showpiece on Sunday 22 March after Newcastle\u2019s dismal away form continued, with Eddie Howe\u2019s side beaten 3-1 on the night at the Etihad Stadium,\u00a0with Omar Marmoush<\/a> scoring twice in the first half.<\/p>\n Marmoush said: \u201cWe showed a very good mentality. We were together as a team. From the first moment we focused on our job.<\/p>\n “It’s one of the biggest clubs in the world. We are here to win trophies. We give our best every day to reach these finals and win silverware.\u201d<\/p>\n Howe, whose team beat Liverpool in last season\u2019s final said: \u201cIt was the start to the game we didn\u2019t want. It took it away from us. The first half was really difficult, the second half the lads did really well.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re really frustrated we\u2019ve only scored one goal in the two games. We\u2019ve been guilty of missing some opportunities and it could have been very difficult but we have to accept the reality of what we\u2019ve delivered.\u201d<\/p>\n Man City<\/a> are the recent masters of this competition and had won their last six EFL Cup semi-finals and gone on to lift the trophy on each occasion. They are the second most successful team in the cup\u2019s history having won it eight times, bettered only by Liverpool<\/a> with ten.<\/p>\n Leading 2-0 from the first leg, Guardiola made the decision to make six changes to the team which drew at Tottenham Hotspur<\/a> at the weekend, with Erling Haaland<\/a> one of those dropping to the bench.<\/p>\n The night started perfectly for Guardiola as Marmoush\u00a0scored in the seventh minute when Dan Burn<\/a>\u2019s sliding tackle deflected off the Egyptian and looped over Aaron Ramsdale<\/a>.<\/p>\n Watch: Marmoush’s goals v Newcastle<\/p>\n Newcastle should have levelled two minutes later when Anthony Gordon<\/a> put Joe Willock<\/a> clean through but James Trafford<\/a> raced off his line quickly to smother the danger.<\/p>\n Man City were creating pressure of their own and came close to a second when Antoine Semenyo<\/a> drove the ball across the six-yard box with Nico O\u2019Reilly<\/a> inches away from making the key connection.<\/p>\n Trafford again raced quickly off his line to deny Gordon before Man City all but cemented their place at Wembley when Marmoush added his second goal of the night as he headed in at the far post, after Kieran Trippier<\/a> had failed to deal with Semenyo\u2019s cross.<\/p>\n On 32 minutes, ruthless City moved into a 5-0 aggregate lead. The outstanding Tijjani Reijnders<\/a> put the finishing touch on another swift counter from the home side, after another driving run from the lively Semenyo.<\/p>\n Watch: Reijnders’ goal v Newcastle<\/p>\n Howe made a series of changes at half-time and one of those, Yoane Wissa<\/a>, was immediately presented with a great chance to score from Abdukodir Khusanov<\/a>\u2019s error but shot wastefully over.<\/p>\n Reijnders had a chance to add his second goal of the night after a quick break from Marmoush before another Anthony Elanga<\/a>, another of Newcastle\u2019s half-time changes, scored a brilliant goal, cutting in from the right and curling beyond Trafford.<\/p>\n Newcastle were continuing to pose problems and Elanga missed a great chance to score again soon afterwards as he skewed Harvey Barnes<\/a>\u2019 cross wide with the goal at his mercy.<\/p>\n With 20 minutes remaining, Guardiola made a raft of changes which almost brought a further goal as Rayan Cherki<\/a> brilliantly played in Haaland but the Norwegian couldn\u2019t beat Ramsdale.<\/p>\n Man City\u2019s Premier League home match with Crystal Palace<\/a> scheduled for 21 March will now be postponed as it clashes with the final.<\/p>\n The match-up is also a repeat of the 2017\/18 final where City beat Arsenal 3-0 in which Mikel Arteta was in the opposite dugout as Guardiola’s assistant, who won his first piece of silverware at the club.<\/p>\n Man City report<\/a> | Newcastle report<\/a><\/p>\n What next for Man City and Newcastle?<\/p>\n Next up in the Premier League on Saturday, Newcastle host Brentford, while Man City travel to Liverpool on Sunday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We review Wednesday’s semi-final second leg as Guardiola’s side win 3-1 at home to secure place at Wembley…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":460563,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,83,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-460562","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-text","11":"tag-top-news","12":"tag-top-stories","13":"tag-topnews","14":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=460562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460562\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/460563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=460562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=460562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=460562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}