The Debrief: Manchester City beat Newcastle to set up League Cup final against Arsenal

0:00On the Football Daily Podcast, The Debrief with Steve Crossman. We have our League Cup finalists in 2026. It will be Arsenal against Manchester City at Wembley Stadium on the 22nd of March. City beating Newcastle by three goals to one in the semi-final second leg. 5-1 on aggregate. All the reaction on the way with correspondent John Murray and Michael Brown inside the stadium and former Newcastle midfielder Isaac Hayden as well. More to come on what's been happening in Scotland as well. Rangers beat Kilmarnock by five goals to one. So they're up into second. Three points above Celtic, three behind Hearts.

0:41But Celtic have a game in hand. Looks like we're going to have a thrilling title race. Celtic should have been playing, but their game at Aberdeen was postponed, as was Dundee versus Motherwell. Other scores, Hibs three, Dundee United two. Hibs are fifth in the table and Livingston one, Falkirk two. So Livingston, after that, still just one win all season and they are six points behind second bottom Kilmarnock in the table. Much of our focus, though, is on the Etihad. John Murray, Manchester City into the final. We sort of expected at the start of the night it was going to happen. By the end of it, I mean, it could have been a different story.

1:20I'm not sure there was any doubt that the end of the story was going to be City going to Wembley. Yeah, on the scoreline, Manchester City completed the job with some ease, really, to reach the final of this competition for the first time for five years. Newcastle's worst-case scenario was conceding an early goal, and that's exactly what they did. In the seventh minute, Marmouche getting a fortunate bounce of the ball to deflect in, and if there was no way back for Newcastle after that, City completely took the tie away from them with two goals in three minutes around the half hour. Rinders was involved in both.

1:56Marmouche's second, a close-range header in the end, and the Dutchman Rinders shooting in number three himself, and with a little over half an hour played, that was that, really. Strangely, in the match, Newcastle had enough chances to actually have turned the tie around. James Trafford made some big saves. Anthony Alanga scored the only goal of the second half, his first for Newcastle United. Good goal as well it was when he came in from the right-hand side. But really, the tie had gone by then. And Manchester City, Pep Guardiola, I think, looking ahead to Anfield on Sunday afternoon. And it was rather sad, really, for Newcastle, for what has been a great year for them as the winners of the League Cup, for it to end like this.

2:37But it does set up what is a very appealing final between the current top two in the Premier League. Isaac I've been thinking as John was talking there which individual player comes out of this in the most credit and maybe having achieved the most in the 90 minutes I think it might be James Trafford Yeah I think from a City perspective definitely it's a strange game really because you wouldn't think that especially leading how they did at half time that the goalkeeper for Manchester would be a big talking point. But he proved crucial in certain moments, especially early on. The Willock save was crucial for me.

3:22Just the timing of it could have gone 1-1, then the game's completely different. But I think that's where you want your goalkeeper to really bail you out in those situations as a player and then that breeds confidence for the rest of the game for him. But I think from a Newcastle perspective as well, I think it's always difficult when you're in those moments but I think, as I said, Alanga coming on in the second half I think he'll take some pride with the goal I think he could have scored a couple more but I think certainly for his confidence it won't do him any harm Michael, James Trafford has got to start the final, hasn't he?

3:57I mean, you would have expected to him anyway, but especially now surely? You would think so, wouldn't you? Yeah, but you know, when you have Donnarumma and it's a final, I think you'll have a look at the situation. Do you think? Yeah, but I've seen this many times, right, with Pep, right? You sort of go, right, who starts the next game? It's a former club comes along your way and you go, right, he's got to play against them. He doesn't do it. Do you know, of all managers, sentiment just goes. If he feels on the day that Donnarumma's going to win him that game, he will make the change. and rightly or wrongly...

4:33I don't think he will. Well, you probably won't, right? But rightly or wrongly, he would do it if he feels that's going to give him the edge. Let's see what his defensive line's like. Let's see who he's got around it. What's the situation over the next few weeks in regards to the Premier League, to the World Champions League, Cup games, etc. And then he'll have a look at it. I mean, I don't think it's a certainty. I'd be very disappointed if it happened to me. But I think we have to look at the bigger picture here. He wants to end with a trophy. Has he done everything he can tonight, James Trafford, to give himself that opportunity, as long as he's good in training?

5:08He's set the tone, hasn't he? He might get another opportunity in the FA Cup coming as well, just around the corner, and then he's got to produce again. Listen, it was a great performance for him. He's got to enjoy these nights. It'll have been a disappointment a couple of months for him. You almost get a sniffer going, right, I could be number one, and then it's taken away quite quickly, and clearly you're not going to displace Donnarumma. and that's the one for him. But, yeah, positive, but it's not a definite shoo-in for me. I must say as well, Steve, it was quite striking how Pep Guardiola here went around the stadium after the match, even though many of the City fans actually had gone.

5:47But for those who had remained in the stadium, he went around very pointedly, didn't he, Michael, clapping those who were inside the ground. You know, they've just won through to another final. And that's the thing, you know, there wasn't many there but he went and said thank you to everybody and what it means to him to get to a final and those fans appreciating it so he did it for a long time didn't he? Really late, waited all the way around and he was giving everybody a big wave and I think he's got his back up on it in regards to what he's produced, he knows the tenure's coming towards an end and what this manager, but John was telling you about what he's won and how many trophies and how many cup finalists he's been involved in, I mean, it's just incredible.

6:30And not only being involved with them, how many... What, has he only lost a couple, John? In his career as a coach, this is the 22nd final he's been in. The previous 21, he's lost only four. But he has lost the last two FA Cup finals of 24 and 25 against Manchester United. Don't remind him, see, those stats like that have started to question what he's done. This is why he doesn't like it, Steve. Someone like John goes to the press and goes, well, you have lost the last two. he goes well what about the others? Isaac I think that with Pep though is and you could see it throughout the game so I mean he was the most animated man inside the stadium from minute one to minute 90.

7:11He's just addicted to winning isn't he? I mean that is just Pep Guardiola. Yeah that's just him in a nutshell I think even the goals going in even the second and third goal tonight you saw him celebrating and he was over the moon with the results tonight but I think just touching on the Donnarumma point before whether he played the final or not Pep's a ruthless winner, he'll do whatever he sees fit to get that win there's no sentiment involved there obviously the performance tonight wouldn't have done Trafford any harm at all but he's in the business to win. Trafford has played in all five matches for Manchester City in this competition and remember Ortega would regularly be the cup goalkeeper.

7:54I think the first League Cup final I did with you, John, was City beating Tottenham, which was the one where Jose Mourinho got sacked just before the final. And he played Zach Steffen. Yeah, that one. He played Zach Steffen in that game and left Edison on the bench. So he's going to play James Trafford, isn't he? I would expect so. I mean, if you were James Trafford, Michael, imagine if you didn't get picked. You'd be devastated. but you know all he can do is train as well as he can that's what I'm saying and just wait and see and you might get more minutes you never know what happens with certain situations and let's hope he does get that chance but a lot of factors will come into play because if Pep thinks that is the one or two percent to get him over the line with this strong Arsenal side if it was a different personnel he might be able to approach it slightly different and I think what will hang over Pep is like John said there the last couple haven't gone his way and some of that's down to winning lots of other things one of them in particular and you sort of just take it for granted it wasn't top it was like a big balloon going off and you've done the Champions League and then it's not necessarily top of your list and I think this season now Now, after last season, he wants to deliver a trophy.

9:15He's going to start, I'm sure of it, but you can never say never. This manager will not consider anybody else if he feels he has to do it. That is a really interesting point around this being a different final, Isaac, because we spoke at the start of the night about how things are a bit different with Pep Guardiola and the future planning and that kind of thing. If he thinks there's a possibility this could be my last trophy, that might actually impact what he does for that Arsenal final. Yeah, 100%. And I think also just psychologically for the Premier League, for the title race as well, you don't know how the games are going to go between now and the final.

9:54That could also play a psychological effect on how close they are to Arsenal for the Premier League as well. So I think there's a lot of stories to play out here. And I think that especially with it being Arsenal and obviously the rivalry that they've kind of had the last couple of years, I think it'll be a really, really interesting final. Yeah. It also, John, really underlined tonight, I thought, just how much Manchester City need Mark Gay, who's not going to be able to play in the League Cup, of course. But they were so open. Yeah, and that has been a common theme, hasn't it, during the course of this season.

10:28But Ruben Diaz, back on the substitutes bench tonight, so you never know, might be involved on Sunday at Anfield against Liverpool. so he's not far away from coming back. So that clearly will help things. I just think in terms of the rivalry with Arsenal, I think the way that it's set up now, OK, there's six points between them right at the moment in the Premier League, but who knows what the situation will be by the time we come to March 22nd. And as I mentioned, there is still the possibility that they could end up playing each other in the FA Cup final. they could end up playing each other potentially in the Champions League, depending on how the draw eventually works out in that.

11:14And they could end up going toe-to-toe into the final straight of the Premier League as well. If that turns out to be the case, this could be quite a couple of months, three months that we've got ahead of us for Manchester City and Arsenal. Which makes it all the more important, Michael, for them to keep players fit. This is what Pep said about Erling Haaland after the Manchester derby. so this is January the 17th. Hopefully Omar Mahmoud will be back soon to give a rest to Erling because he is exhausted. I did think it was interesting that he brought him and Rodri actually who has spoken quite passionately before about players playing too much football.

11:52Were you surprised that you brought them on? So the game was long since finished, wasn't it? In the commentary, I was watching obviously I got a great view right behind the technical area and I started going, right, look who they're getting here to go and have a warm-up here, because they hadn't even moved and it was Rodri and Haaland. I said, of all those two, surely are you going to wait? Because it is Liverpool. And over the years, I've looked at Pep and I've gone, right, we'll leave those players because it's Champions League and you've got a particular team at home in the Premier League. So you go, right, well, it's Real Madrid on Tuesday, they can't play because surely you've got to save them.

12:28And he plays them. And he's always gone on and done it and he's took the risk. and I think like he just says, you know what, they're better off having 20 minutes, 25 minutes tonight so he's on the build-up, just keeps them fresh, keeps them on the front, he talks about rhythm a lot and he wants to get them ready in that way. Other managers, other people will be sat there going, well if they've played a lot, why do they need any of it? Why don't they just wait? And he probably feels it's just that 20 minutes. You know what Isaac thinks, whether you go, right, do you know what, that's about right, I'm just ready, just enough where obviously you lose two or three days training it's just watching the guys now on top up doing running i've never really seen do that too much yeah no i was going to say that actually the sport science for me now in the game is such a huge part and you know even 15 20 minutes for roger and harlan tonight that might mean that they do less top-up runs after the game they might not train tomorrow might have a recovery day with the rest of the starters and then it just keeps some fresh and ticking over.

13:26So I think, honestly, sports science nowadays, it's so pivotal to keep everybody fresh and to stave away the injuries. I think we saw that last night as well with the Arsenal-Chelsea game. Obviously, Cole Palmer was only able to play 30 minutes. Esteval as well was only 30 minutes. So I think that it's really having an impact on what managers can do and what they can select from their side. That's a really interesting point, Isaac, because there is obviously a lot of science to it and they wouldn't be making these decisions if you know they they hadn't sort of crunched the numbers with all the staff behind the scenes however from the outside that is the kind of thing that leads to people saying well you can't really complain about too much football if you have an opportunity to give someone a night off and you don't take it yeah no I did get it from from both sides to be honest but it's it's one of those where you could play tonight you could play rogerie and harlan they could pick up an injury and everyone goes well why have you done that and then you could rest them equally and not play them and they could play the next game and pull up an injury as well so you can't really navigate for certain injuries but I do think that the sports science has taken a real real first line of staving away injuries and making sure that everyone's fit and as I said he would have been in constant contact throughout the game with the sports science team they'll have the data, live data, so they'll be able to see everyone's running distances and intensities, and he'll be making decisions for that.

15:02From a small village on the banks of the River Nile... Everybody called me Muhammad, but it's her name or nickname, they called me Mo. ...to the biggest stages of world football. Goes for the corner! Mo Salah! Salah is more than just a player. He's an icon, a symbol, a king. It sits there and Salah rips off his shirt. Mohamed Salah represents a dream for Egyptians, for Muslims, for Africans. More than just a football player, he gave us hope. I'm Kelly Cates. This is Sporting Giants' Mo Salah. Listen on BBC Sounds. On the Football Daily Podcast, The Debrief. With Steve Crossman. We can hear from City midfielder Tajani Rinders.

15:50Yeah, very good. Great team performance. Of course, there's been spoken a lot about our second half the last couple of weeks. Today we showed that we were more stable and very happy to reach the final. This club has won so many trophies in recent seasons, but there's obviously new blood in the dressing room. What would it mean to win that first trophy for Manchester City? A lot. Yeah, what you say, there is a lot of new blood, so it will be amazing if we can win our first silverware for the guys who are new here. And yeah, it gives us an extra boost as well. And the managers often talked in the past about the League Cup being the springboard to the rest of the season.

16:34Has that been mentioned at all this time? No, not that much. But, yeah, we know, of course, we speak as well in the dressing room about it with the teammates. And, of course, it can give us a big boost, yeah. And just a quick word for your teammate Omar Marmouche. Two early goals and really put the game to bed this evening. And you'll need goals from him as you move forward for the rest of the season. Yes. No, he's a great attacker, great player. And today he was very important for us. And, yeah, he helps us a lot, of course. Let's flip it back to Newcastle, John. I thought you used exactly the right word there at full time when you said it's sad for them.

17:11That's sort of how it felt, and probably because of all the missed chances as well. It just sort of felt like a flat way to finish their League Cup. Yeah, tough time for them at the moment and for Eddie Howe. To lose Anthony Gordon as well, that really twists the knife tonight in terms of the way that the evening has gone. As I mentioned, they're down in the bottom half of the Premier League. They're in this really tough run of matches. You know how close they could get to the top four or probably five to qualify for the Champions League next season. But, of course, they are still chasing success on other fronts as well.

17:46I feel that their FA Cup tie at Aston Villa, which is the tea-time match on the FA Cup fourth round Saturday, I feel that the FA Cup now actually becomes really important for Newcastle United. And also, you know, Champions League. a match against Carabag two legs, second leg at St James' Park Newcastle, even though they'll be missing players I don't know how many of them will be back by the time we get to that in a couple of weeks time but if they get through that tie the potential against either Barcelona or Chelsea in the round of 16 for Newcastle United when the second leg would be away from home.

18:23So that's why I feel that the FA Cup does take on a real importance for Newcastle this season I have a feeling, Isaac, that Eddie Howe will probably have to say, you know, we'll wait on a scan or if there's swelling, we'll wait for that to go down, whatever it is with Anthony Gordon. It feels unlikely we're going to learn too much about that tonight. But if you're a Newcastle fan, if you're a Newcastle player, that is the thing you're going home thinking about, isn't it? How is Anthony Gordon? Yeah, I mean, the amount of players that they've lost already. I mean, to have a player of the quality of Anthony Gordon, and that as a player, you don't want to see a teammate injured at all, but especially one that can produce moments of magic and real quality.

19:06Even if you look at the midfield area, I mean, Sandro Tonali played another 90 minutes tonight, you know, with Bruno being injured. You know, he's what you'd probably call on the red zone, and there's so many big games coming up. I think that's obviously just touching it. They've got Brentford at the weekend, another tough game. two Champions League games obviously all that travel and then that towards the end of this sort of period of games they've got the they've got the time with that derby so the derby will be another big game towards the end of this towards March so there's a lot of games for them and I just hope that they recover some players quickly and hopefully with Gordon didn't pull up too sharply so hopefully with him walking off and obviously holding his hamstring it's not too bad That is a good point.

19:52When he did it, he glided towards that stop. He realised he couldn't get anywhere. What was good, he wasn't in a full chase. So it wasn't at max sprint, he was always way away from it. And then he walked without sort of, you know what I mean, Isaac? You're sort of pulling it up as you're going and you're walking away. He walked quite clean, so hopefully he could be your lower back and tighten up, pull that hamstring, hopefully there's a bit of release work, that's not too bad, but he's so explosive. The first few runs were so much intensity around them, he knew he was going to go and press the goalkeeper, I knew he got down that right-hand side, that ball across for that early chance, wasn't it, from Willick that he created and, you know, they're just not having it right, but they've been used to this type of loading for some time, he has to have them to a fine edge, doesn't he Eddie Howe, with the squad and the amount of games that he's going through, So, yeah, it's another one he doesn't need.

20:50But you look at the positives, they've created lots of chances. Alanga coming on there and getting a decent goal. They had lots of chances after that. They should have certainly got more. And that's all they can do, really. They will be hurting. The Premier League form is so inconsistent. Really, really tough night for Newcastle head coach Eddie Howe. Here he is. Yeah, tough 45 minutes, opening 45 minutes for us. I thought we wanted the fast start that Manchester City got. and it wasn't for the want to try. And the lads were all out in the game, but we looked like we were lacking in energy first half, lacking in the normal intensity that we play at.

21:25We were a little bit reactive, poor in duels, conceded some poor goals. Albeit, as you said, there were chances in and around their chances for us, which we didn't take. Second half was much better. I thought we were, yeah, our physicality showed in the second half. Substitution made a big difference. Could have been very different, but we didn't take our opportunities when they came. And of course, we're stretched and we're chasing the game. To come here to go down, this is the worst stadium, I think, and the worst team to play when you're chasing and you're leaving yourself a little bit exposed at the back, which we felt we had to do today to have any chance of scoring the goals we needed to get through.

22:03But so, yeah, the damage was done in that first leg and we were trying to claw it back today, but it wasn't to be. So Newcastle fans are going to be kind of hanging on the words of Eddie Howe when he's asked about Anthony Gordon. Manchester City fans, when they hear from Pep Guardiola, which hopefully we should be able to do very shortly. They're, John, going to be hanging on every word at the minute as well, aren't they? Because it's almost every time he speaks at the moment, you're really analysing everything he's saying. For all of the reasons we've talked about, not least what we were saying about Sammy Mockbell's piece earlier about all the discussion that's happening with what City do in the next few months.

22:36Yeah, but I don't think we should worry about any further clues. I think he'll make it all too clear that his focus of attention now is on Liverpool on Sunday and he will park the prospect of Arsenal in the Cup final until we get to the middle of next month he will feel even though I sat in the room with him on Sunday when he came in to speak to the media after the Tottenham match and it was suggested that maybe it might be the time for Manchester City to focus on perhaps the other competitions, he was having absolutely none of that, he's not going to give this up until it's mathematically impossible He also seems Michael to be sort of turning up his level of mischief with journalists, I've noticed.

23:17Like, if you watch a Pep Guardiola press conference now, he's calling people by their name a lot. He's sort of, he's always been a little bit sarcastic, hasn't he? Let's be honest. But he seems to be dialing it up a little bit as well. Well, there's a couple of different sort of feelings, isn't there, where you ask that question, he fires one back at you. It's quite a short first one just to see where you go, to try and say, don't you get too confident when asking me certain difficult ones? and he's been a master at it. Yeah, and he has. And then there's the other one where he's the laffy jokey.

23:48He'll take on the room. He'll ask the questions back and opinions. We see with Rob Nothman asking him, what did you think? Did you think it was a foul? Well, he's saying, well, do you know what? He's saying, no, we want to hear what, the listeners want to hear what you think about that situation, Pep. Then he comes out in the week and talks about, oh, my owners, they should have spent miles more money. In other words, it's only money that he's delivered. For what he's given to this sport in this country and to this football club, it's not just about the finances. Yes, he's had a helping hand in that.

24:25But we've seen somebody who's produced things that we hadn't seen before. And I think you look right throughout the pyramid system, all of the managers, all the coaches are saying, right, who am I going to follow? Who's my leader? And it's Pep Guardiola. It has been a joy for every neutral or every Manchester City fan and everybody who works with him in the sport. I feel like he is just firing shots to say, you're still not appreciating what I've given you. It's natural, isn't it, to point out certain negatives when we analyse certain sports and football and what the pundits say, what a manager would come out and say.

25:05And he's just saying, you know what, He's just having a little dig to say, I'm still here, I'm still fighting, and I want to get to him at the end of the season. I don't feel that what we've seen has been particularly out of keeping with how Pep Guardiola has been in terms of his media performances over the whole time that I've seen him. Going back to when we covered his Barcelona team, we would go there, they would come here, I would see him. sometimes he would speak eloquently for you know minutes and minutes and minutes other times he would be prickly brief sharp you think what's buying him today and he's still like that it's always been and I think that's he what's how he wants it he doesn't want his inquisitors to be comfortable he wants to keep them on their toes and he's you know he's like that now he's always been like that.

26:00Do you reckon he has a routine? No, I think he's totally unpredictable. What did I do next? I'm going to do the opposite. I've always thought that with him, you know on the occasions that I've gone to interview him, you never quite know. They can have won brilliantly and played magnificent football and he's monosyllabic. How do you approach that then? So do you know an experience person who's going to do that? What do you think then when you go to sit with him and like the media are going to take him on in a second what what is the mindset then of people to go to say to pet like like how do you how do you draw him out and and other times they can have had a really bad night really disappointing and you think oh it's going to be prickly here and he's actually he's actually quite forthcoming and that's that is the that's the that's the tricky thing about it He's very easy to interview, Michael, away from a game.

26:54Yeah. Steve, do you remember... You've had your sit-downs with him, haven't you, Steve? Well, I was going to say, do you remember the programme he did which was like a Desert Island Discs programme? Pet music with Guillaume Ballagher in Salford, yeah. Which was brilliant. It was fantastic. That was when he just arrived. Yeah, people probably will have forgotten. I hope you can find it on BBC Sounds. I'm certainly going to check. He was appointed manager of Manchester City and then about three days later he appeared at Media City, our offices where I'm sitting right now, with Guillaume Balaguet, and they did this brilliant programme.

27:23And that actually links in nicely, Michael. I find that if you talk to him about things other than football... You do that, though, don't you? He can't get enough of it. I've watched your interviews, and you always think of something. You look into something away from that first, don't you? Or quite early in your interview when you sit to have a chat with him just to sort of say, we want to find out about you a little bit more. But you can't do that in a post-match interview, can you? So that's where it becomes difficult and unpredictable. I mean, there was a funny one the other week when we were in Norway, in the Arctic Circle, and one of the Norwegian journalists who was there asked him about the Northern Lights.

27:58He just suddenly went, you know, it went off on a complete tangent and, you know, seemed to quite enjoy that line of discussion. He also, Isaac, is one of those where if you're playing against his Manchester City team, as you have, you never know if you're coming off the pitch as a player, if he's going to run over and try and grab you all of a sudden for a random chat. Yeah, he's done that to many players, to be fair. I mean, I remember years ago when we played at St James' Park, and I think we beat them, it was in 2019, we beat them 2-1. And I remember that game after then, he was very complimentary of all the players.