A knockout blow! Blackburn 4-3 Newcastle (AET)

Not a penalty?
Fans of NUFC can put any hopes of League Cup silverware on ice for yet another year after bowing out at the hands of Blackburn Rovers last night.

Gael Givet struck the hammer blow right at the end of extra time as Blackburn shaded a share of seven goals on the night, although the reality is that the away can feel lucky to even have been involved in the game at that stage.

We were poor on the night and deserved to lose, although that in itself demonstrates the ability and belief that this team has in reserve. They never let their heads drop and even at two goals down with only stoppage time remaining they still managed to dig deep and take a game that looked dead and buried into extra time.

It was the hosts who started the brightest and they threatened from the off. Junior Hoilett went close before the home side took the lead inside the first five minutes after good work from Martin Olsson who cut the ball back from the left for Ruben Rochina to fire home past Tim Krul.

The visitors very nearly hit back immediately through Demba Ba who thumped a shot against the post but that was just about all the away side had to offer in attack as they struggled to get a foothold in the match.

In truth Blackburn were at risk of running away with things and we can thank Tim Krul for keeping us in the match. The Dutch stopper was on hand to deny a Chris Samba header, a Rochina shot and a couple of scrambled efforts from Morten Gamst Pedersen and David Goodwillie.

However with the tie delicately balanced it wouldn’t have taken a lot for Newcastle to get back into it. They nearly did that in the second half through Demba Ba, Sylvain Marveaux and a rather gilt edged chance from Hatem Ben Arfa who somehow managed to head over the bar from two yards out.

Newcastle were getting back into the match and had strong appeals for a penalty waved away after Demba Ba was brought down by Chris Samba. The referee waved away the protests and Newcastle switched off as a quick clearance found Ruben Rochina who sprinted clear of the defence and chased after his own poor first touch. Tim Krul came out to deal with that and cleaned everything out, ball, player, the lot which was enough to convince the ref to award a penalty in favour of the home side. Replays have subsequently shown that Krul cleared the ball first, by some margin, but the decision was made and Yakubu slotted home from the spot to make it 2-0 on the night.

That was pretty much game over in fairness as it looked to kill off any attempt on our part to get back in the game. The match was petering out and even a 25-yard goal from Danny Guthrie in injury time failed to lift the spirit amongst fans. But then the unthinkable happened.

Yohan Cabaye lined an ambitious free-kick 30-yards out and unleashed an unstoppable shot into the top right hand corner of Mark Bunn’s net. An unbelievable turn around. Two goals in stoppage time is something that few of us expected but extra time it was.

Unfortunately it was Blackburn who regained the lead in the first half of extra time through Morten Gamst Pedersen’s hugely deflected free kick which left Tim Krul with no chance despite his best efforts. However you rule this Newcastle side out at your peril and they equalised once more after Yohan Cabaye was brought down on the box. To me it was a soft penalty, but so was the Blackburn one earlier and don’t forget we should have had one ourselves! Peter Lovenkrands took the spot kick and levelled the score at 3-3 at the end of the first period of extra time.

The second period of extra time was an altogether tighter affair as neither side looked willing to take a chance with the match finely poised. It really looked as though the drama of a penalty shootout was on the cards, but that was until Blackburn has the final say in the last minute of extra time thanks to Gael Givet who headed home from point blank range. From that there was no coming back.

So Blackburn are into the Quarter Finals at our expense then and we must put dreams of a Wembley final on hold for another year. Still it’s been that long that another years won’t hurt, and there is still the FA Cup to consider!

The League Cup is the one that is supposed to be winnable however which is why it’s a shame that we’re out of it. It’s supposed to be the one that the real top teams scoff at allowing the unlikely lads to get a pop at winning a pot. It’s a myth of course. Just look at the teams that are in the last eight of the competition.

It’s also the end of our 14 match unbeaten run so it will be interesting to see just how we come back from it. If the spirit shown is anything like what we saw last night then we’ll be fine. We deserved to lose last night because we were rubbish for 88 minutes of the game. We may have had 70% of the ball but we rarely threatened the Blackburn goal. However the spirit in this team should be applauded and ensured that we went down fighting in the end.

Next up, Stoke City!

Blackburn: Mark Bunn, Jason Lowe, Martin Olsson, Christopher Samba, Gael Givet, Ruben Rochina, Morten Gamst Pedersen, Radosav Petrovic, Junior Hoilett, David Goodwillie, Yakubu

Subs: Paul Robinson, Grant Hanley, Myles Anderson, Robbie Cotton, Mauro Formica, Jason Roberts, Simon Vukcevic

Newcastle: Tim Krul; Danny Simpson, James Perch, Fabricio Coloccini (c), Davide Santon; Sylvain Marveaux, Danny Guthrie, Yohan Cabaye, Jonas Gutierrez; Hatem Ben Arfa; Demba Ba

Subs: Rob Elliot, Peter Lovenkrands, Mehdi Abeid, Gabriel Obertan, Sammy Ameobi, Nile Ranger, Dan Gosling

Referee: Robert Madley

Attendance: 10,682

About toonsy

A lifelong Newcastle fan and current webmaster of this very 'blog who has the sole aim of creating a place by Newcastle United fans, for Newcastle United fans.

102 thoughts on “A knockout blow! Blackburn 4-3 Newcastle (AET)

  1. Hopefully it might make people pipe down about Ben Arfa and let him go at his own speed instead of being rushed by eager fans aswell.

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  2. Actually we are dead bottom of the fair play table. It looks as though they deduct points for the cards, not add them. It’s all extremely confusing and there is no actual explanation for any of the rankings but we were dead last in the 2010/2011 season as well.
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/competitions/premier-league/8519318/How-does-the-Premier-League-Fair-Play-Table-actually-work.html
    That website seems to have the best explanation of the table… that it’s really not clear! Chelsea won last year but since they were already in Europe it moves down to the next team.
    Sorry for the bad news!

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  3. 4 of the 5 categories seem to be subjective, getting points dependent on the judges. The first category (reds/yellows) seems to be out of 10 and you lose 3 points and 1 point for red and yellow cards respectively.

    Nearly every team seems to be ahead of us for positive play, not sure how that is. Truly bizarre system.
    http://www.premierleague.com/page/FairPlayTable

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  4. Well, with Taylor nursing a broken snoot, Williamson out for weeks. I wonder if Pardew will be confident of snubbing Kadar again and not even having any defenders on the bench. That plan is starting to look rather silly tbh especially if we are to expect Perch and Colloccini to be strong enough in the air to take on Stoke away. Are we really supposed to believe it’s an attitude problem when even friggin Nile Danger is making the bench.

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  5. @big Dave

    Just read your comment from last night fella.
    Grind me down.
    Not a chance .
    I dont mind it a bit.
    I just mentioned it to have a laugh at the vulnerable. 😛

    On another subject, when the clocks go forward this weekend, does that mean we lose or gain an hour in bed. It always confuses me this one. 😯

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  6. I don’t get it 😕 😆

    So it’s basically someones opinion on how dirty we are? Cracking. I can’t see a problem with that 🙄

    We should organise the league table in the same manner 😆

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  7. Troy – Clocks go BACK mate. We lose an hour. This is great of course as I have so much sleep that I can afford to lose an hour *sarcasm*

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  8. @toonsy

    I don’t know if you are doing me with this one?
    I put it in for hydeous to bite 2 days in a row.
    You can use your *sarcasm* word to cover your tracks but I’m sure that relates to your sleep comments.
    Woo hoo hoo hooo 😛

    I’ve noticed the water in the plug hole goes round the other way when the clocks go back. Has anyone else noticed?
    This one is for anyone other than hydeous or toonsy. 😛

    Quick toonsy, get a new thread up before they notice. 😛

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  9. It’s the greatest!!! I’ve just realised you’ve done me! Woo hooo hoooo hooooo
    Woop hooo hoo hooooo!
    😆 😆 😆 😆 😆
    Quick toonsy, change the thread!!!!
    Before they notice!
    I’ve done myself! 😛 😛 😳
    Classic!

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  10. One hour back, lose an hours sleep.
    I missed it. I bloody missed it and thought I had done you. 😛

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  11. That fair play league is bizarre, respect towards opponent wtf, can’t see how we can be below chelski who have had 3 players sent off in last week and every player booked !

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  12. @toonsy

    Ha. . . I’ve missed the banter from a section of the blog. Now work that one out. 😛

    Seriously, on a different note. What’s your thoughts for this season?
    Where do you see us finishing?

    I reckon 7th and that will be a success in my eyes. Anything less then it’s an average season and what I had predicted.
    But, this start is tremendous.

    Some of the cracks are papered over by an absolute brilliant season by Krul.

    But at the end of the day , he’s part of the team and the results are what matter.

    I’ve even bought my son, young Chip, Chip Stavers, a season ticket.

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  13. I think anything top half would be a success to be fair, although it’s odd. Like say we get 10th, I’d be fair enough enough with that but it would be pretty standard. It’s about the bottom of my happiness scale. 7th would be cracking and would be somewhere near the top, and I can see us getting it. We’d be the “best of the rest” which isn’t too shabby for our second season back and it may well be good enough for Europe looking at what is left in the League Cup 😕

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  14. Troy – I am. The Fair Play thingy is a way into Europe at the end of the day. Fulham are in Europe this season because of it 😉

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  15. @toonsy

    If we made 10th though, looking to the future, would that not be an indication of our long term future. ?

    It would be another season gone, with each decent player having one less year on their contract and I’m sure not inspired by the teams progress.

    I personally believe that we have made such a strong start that 8th will be the lowest we will finish unless we capitulate due to a series of injuries.

    8th would not be devastating to be honest, as long as we maintain the progress in the transfer Market. Due to the finances, I would see no reason why we shouldn’t.

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  16. @toonsy

    I appreciate the point about the fair play trophy but we are 20 places from the top.
    It’s not as if we were quibbling over an odd yellow card here and there.
    I miss the point why some are getting upset.

    Whether we are bottom or in second place means we won’t win so just get over it.

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  17. OK I was wrong about the fair play league, but one thing I do know is clocks go back so it’s an extra hour sleep 😀

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  18. Troy…I think it’s more about how it’s worked out that bothers people, ie respect towards opponents! who decides that? In theory the team with the most reds and yellows could actually win the fair play which is a little bizarre.
    Imo it should only be based on cards and possibly any fa action, ie crowd throwing objects onto the pitch.
    It’s irrelevant anyway, we’ll qualify through our league position 😆

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  19. @Susan

    But does the water in your plug hole spin in the opposite direction when the clocks go back or forwards.

    They do in my house. Very strange. 😯

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  20. Oh Troy, you aren’t getting me again.

    I can’t believe you’re setting your clocks back already! Now I have to stay up an extra hour on monday night for the stoke game! Uncool!

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