{"id":699584,"date":"2026-01-16T09:32:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T09:32:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/699584\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T09:32:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T09:32:15","slug":"three-things-we-learned-newcastle-united-0-2-manchester-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/699584\/","title":{"rendered":"Three things we learned – Newcastle United 0-2 Manchester City"},"content":{"rendered":"

Manchester City have put one foot in the Carabao Cup final with a convincing win against Newcastle United at St James\u2019s Park amidst VAR controversy.<\/p>\n

Antoine Semenyo and Rayan Cherki\u2019s second half efforts gave City a two goal cushion to take into the second leg, which takes place at the Etihad Stadium on February 4th.<\/p>\n

But Semenyo was extremely unfortunate to not get a second goal, after a five and a half minute VAR check adjudged Erling Haaland to be offside and interfering with either the goalkeeper or the defender.<\/p>\n

Here are three things we learned as City earned a huge win on Tyneside:<\/p>\n

Guardiola\u2019s desperate to win again<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"NEWCASTLE<\/a><\/p>\n

NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE, ENGLAND – JANUARY 13: Pep Guardiola, Manager of Manchester City, interacts with referee Chris Kavanagh after a member of his coaching staff was shown a yellow card during the Carabao Cup Semi Final First Leg match between Newcastle United and Manchester City at St James\u2019 Park on January 13, 2026 in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. (Photo by Stu Forster\/Getty Images) Getty Images<\/p>\n

Pep Guardiola\u2019s explosive post match interview cuts a different figure to the man we saw this time last season.<\/p>\n

In press conferences, he was trying to cut a confident figure reassuring fans that City would return to their best during a dismal run of form.<\/p>\n

But off the pitch, he must have been having sleepless nights over how to steady the ship and potentially for the first time in his career over his job.<\/p>\n

But at the end of the Newcastle game, he did something he very rarely does (and never does after a defeat) and criticised the officials.<\/p>\n

The decision to disallow Semenyo\u2019s second goal was quite frankly ludicrous. Haaland both can\u2019t be proven to be offside and also wasn\u2019t interfering with the goalkeeper. If anything, he was being fouled by Malick Thiaw.<\/p>\n

But both Pep\u2019s incredibly strong lineup choice and his fiery post match press conference shows he\u2019s still got the fire in his belly to rally the players to compete for trophies in the final 18 months of his current contract.<\/p>\n

City have quality squad depth again<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"NEWCASTLE<\/a><\/p>\n

NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE, ENGLAND – JANUARY 13: Rayan Cherki of Manchester City celebrates after scoring their side\u2019s second goal during the Carabao Cup Semi Final First Leg match between Newcastle United and Manchester City at St James\u2019 Park on January 13, 2026 in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. (Photo by Alex Livesey – Danehouse\/Getty Images) Getty Images<\/p>\n

Rodri, Tijjani Reijnders, Rico Lewis, Rayan Cherki and Rayan Ait-Nouri. They were the names Guardiola called upon from the bench to help City see out the rest of the game and even increase their advantage.<\/p>\n

A list of players to not feature in the game at all are Nico Gonzalez, Omar Marmoush, John Stones, Ruben Dias, Savinho, Oscar Bobb, Gianluigi Donnarumma and Josko Gvardiol, but City were still able to name a strong starting XI.<\/p>\n

Credit to the board – after a few years of poor spending and a laissez-faire approach to City\u2019s ageing squad, the new man Hugo Viana and his colleagues have reinvested into the squad, to the point where City are beginning to look like they have serious depth again.<\/p>\n

Plenty of the squad are under 23 (namely Cherki, Savinho, Lewis, Abdukodir Khusanov Khusanov, Max Alleyne and Nico O\u2019Reilly) so will improve with minutes and training under Pep, whilst the likes of Phil Foden, Haaland and Donnarumma are world class players entering the peak of their careers.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s true that City have spent lots of money and not every club can do that, but in the market they\u2019re thriving where the likes of Manchester United, Chelsea and even Liverpool are failing.<\/p>\n

Haaland played well – but desperately needs some rest<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"NEWCASTLE<\/a><\/p>\n

NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE, ENGLAND – JANUARY 13: Erling Haaland of Manchester City in action during the Carabao Cup Semi Final First Leg match between Newcastle United and Manchester City at St James\u2019 Park on January 13, 2026 in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. (Photo by Michael Regan\/Getty Images) Getty Images<\/p>\n

Perhaps contrary to the popular opinion, I thought Haaland was alright at Newcastle, despite not scoring once again.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s on a bit of a scoring drought, with his last open play goal coming in the 3-0 win over West Ham on December 20th.<\/p>\n

Against Eddie Howe\u2019s team, however, I thought he did a good job at holding the ball up against physically strong and intelligent defenders in Thiaw and Sven Botman.<\/p>\n

He had one chance at the backpost in the first half where he couldn\u2019t quite reach the ball, then in the second half, he tried to slip an intricate through ball into Reijnders when he could\u2019ve shot from the edge of the box.<\/p>\n

Just like he goes on mega scoring runs, the Norwegian striker does tend to have a drier patch every season, but he will be back to scoring and his overall play being good on the whole is a positive sign.<\/p>\n

He does look shot and needs a rest, but Marmoush returning from AFCON soon will give him that opportunity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Manchester City have put one foot in the Carabao Cup final with a convincing win against Newcastle United…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":699585,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8813],"tags":[748,393,4884,2465,148407,150664,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-699584","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-manchester","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-manchester","12":"tag-manchester-city-match-recaps","13":"tag-manchester-city-league-cup","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115904090706025346","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=699584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699584\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/699585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=699584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=699584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=699584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}