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24 min: On the touchline, Pep Guardiola looks utterly dejected. His team were very much on the front foot. But they’ve been pegged back in short order. That wasn’t very good defending. But hats off to Newcastle, who have got their reward for coming at City after suffering that early blow.
GOAL! Manchester City 1-1 Newcastle United (Ait-Nouri og 22)
The corner’s sent to the near post. It’s headed out weakly by Nunes. Hall, on the edge of the D, takes aim. His drive flies through a crowded box, pings off Ait-Nouri, and dribbles into the bottom right, past the wrong-footed Donnarumma. Hall celebrates the goal, but his initial shot was off target. It’s an og.
21 min: … Newcastle clear and counter, Elanga working his way down the right and earning the visitors a corner of their own. The corner’s played back down the right. Trippier curls in delightfully. Thiaw wins a header, six yards out. Donnarumma is forced to tip over the crossbar. And from the next corner, coming in from the left …
20 min: Rodri was strangely passive just before the opener. But now he takes matters into his own hands, bustling into the Newcastle box from the right and winning a corner. The set piece is worked back to Silva, who curls towards the far stick. Pope is forced to flap out for yet another corner, this time from the left. From which …
18 min: The scoring won’t have ended tonight, that looks almost nailed-on. Now Marmoush sails down the left and cuts infield before shooting hard. Pope parries. Semenyo meets the rebound, but not at a height that’s conducive to returning the ball with power. He slices harmlessly wide right.
17 min: Newcastle nearly respond immediately, Gordon racing down the inside-left channel and just about getting the better of Guehi, though the defender pushes him wider than he’d like. Gordon chops inside and aims for the bottom right, but Donnarumma blocks. The rebound evades Elanga and City clear.
15 min: Could Pope have done better there? He got a lot of hand on that shot, but only palmed it into the side netting. Having said that, O’Reilly hit that with great feeling, so the power may have simply been too much.
GOAL! Manchester City 1-0 Newcastle United (O'Reilly 14)
Another right-to-left move. Marmoush advances down the middle and slips the ball to O’Reilly on his left. O’Reilly has Haaland steaming in on the overlap, but O’Reilly takes the shot himself, fizzing a low drive into the bottom left from the edge of the box!
12 min: Nunes, Marmoush, Haaland and O’Reilly are all involved as City stream upfield. Some easy-on-the-eye, one-touch stuff, from the right-back position to the left wing, that’s strangely stripped of momentum by Rodri, who needlessly turns tail. But no matter, because …
10 min: Haaland wrestles with Burn on the City right wing. Burn grabs a bit of shirt, then brings down his man from behind. An obvious free kick, which for some reason Burn takes extreme exception to. He tells it as he sees it, at some length, and talks his way into the book. A long evening tiptoeing along the disciplinary tightrope, against perhaps the best striker in the world, stretches out ahead.
8 min: Willock charges after a long pass down the left. He’s nudged from behind by Nunes, and goes over, expecting a whistle that doesn’t come. It should have done. Nunes gets away with a sly one there.
6 min: A bit of turf for Gordon to run into down the right. He’s got the better of Ait-Nouri, but there’s nobody in dark blue keeping up with him in the centre, and he’s forced to turn tail. A waste of a half-chance to develop something. “Vitas Gerulaitis!” trills Justin Kavanagh. “Now there’s a name that evokes one of the greatest sporting matches of all time, that back and forth semi-final of Wimbledon 1977 against Björn Borg. It was the tennis equivalent of what happens practically every time Newcastle play Liverpool. Let’s hope for some of that drama today against City.”
4 min: … and now Silva snaps at Burn’s heels, forcing a mistake that leads to another corner. This one played short by Silva to Nunes, who returns the ball. Silva forces the ball through a half-arsed Willock challenge, and wins another corner. Nothing comes from that one, but it’s only half cleared, so Semenyo tries his luck down the right. His cutback only just evades Haaland in the middle. Newcastle already in backs-to-the-wall mode on their least-favourite patch in the land.
2 min: City are on the front foot immediately. Ait-Nouri makes good down the left and whips in a low cross towards Marmoush. Thiaw is forced to turn behind for a corner, which is headed clear by Hall. A fast start by the hosts.
Newcastle get the ball rolling! “No-one actually believes we’ll win this game, do they?” sighs Toon fan Chris Paraskevas. “I mean the last time we won at the Etihad, the goal-scorers were Moussa Sissoko (now ruining his reputation at Panathinaikos with Rafa Benitez) and Ryan Taylor.”
The teams are out. Manchester City, in sky blue, are given a guard of honour by members of their 1976 League Cup winning side. The 50th anniversary of that victory, over Newcastle, comes up next week. The Toon in third-choice blue. As for the weather, Bert Challenor, the talent scout from Comedians by Trevor Griffiths, says it best: “I’ll never understand why they don’t run boats to Manchester.” We’ll be off in a minute.
(They’re waiting on London to give the word, according to Eddie Waters.)
Pep talks to TNT. “The selection is to try to win the game … the people on the bench are for the second half … [the whole week to prepare] has been good … not just training but rest … no rest, every three days … when you can give one week, it is massively important for everyone … we can do better … we have to do better to have a chance to fight [for the title] until the end … [Newcastle] has always been a tough game … since Eddie Howe took over that position they are always getting better and better.”
Eddie Howe, whose team have won their last three away matches, speaks to TNT Sports. “We’ve played really well in the three games … played every game with a really good mindset … really good focus as well … diligent in and out of possession … showed our athleticism … we need to do all of those things tonight … we’re playing against a very good team … we need to be at our very best … we’ve tried not to dwell on [travelling to and from Azerbaijan] … it can very easily become relevant in your mind … so we’ve just focused on the good result and performance … we are trying now to back that up and be at our very best … there are no excuses from us … learning from the cup game, there was a few things we needed to do better, and we need to put them into action.”
The 5.30pm kick-off between West Ham and Bournemouth has just ended goalless. That result means Newcastle can leap into eighth place with a win tonight. A draw would move them above Everton into ninth. Their worst-case scenario doesn’t bear thinking about: a defeat by four goals or more would let Sunderland take their tenth-place spot without having to do a single thing.
Meanwhile we already knew what’s at stake for Manchester City this evening: a win and they’ll move to within two points of Arsenal at the top.
… and at the very real risk of belabouring the point to the extreme annoyance of Newcastle fans … here’s a reminder of what happened when the two teams met here just 18 days ago in the second leg of the League Cup semi-finals. We’ll stop this now.
That aforementioned 16-game winning run in this particular fixture isn’t the only statistic skewing hope in Manchester City’s favour. They’re unbeaten in 21 stagings of this match, and in English top-flight history, that’s a winning home run only bettered by Everton, who had the hex over Fulham at Goodison for a 22-match sequence between 1961 and 2018. That record could be equalled tonight.
There’s also the fact that City have scored in every single one of their last 34 matches against Newcastle. That’s a run that puts them joint-third on the following all-time list.
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Chelsea against Newcastle United: 37 games between 1933 and 1969
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Tottenham Hotspur against Newcastle United: 35 games between 1922 and 1961
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Everton against Blackburn Rovers: 34 games between 1925 and 1962
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Manchester City against Newcastle United: 34 games between 2007 and 2025 (ongoing)
Newcastle have made a habit of this sort of carry-on. So there’s a lot at stake for the stats nerds this evening. Never mind City’s title hopes, Newcastle’s outside chance of finishing in the Champions League spots, etc.
Both teams are in if-it-ain’t-broke mode. Manchester City name the same starting XI from their last Premier League match, the 3-0 home win over Fulham, with one exception: Omar Marmoush comes in for Phil Foden, who drops to the bench.
Newcastle also make one change. This is from their actual last game, the 6-1 Champions League romp at Qarabag. Jacob Ramsey replaces Harvey Barnes, who is named as a sub.
The teams
Manchester City: Donnarumma, Nunes, Dias, Guéhi, Ait-Nouri, Rodri, Silva, O’Reilly, Semenyo, Marmoush, Haaland.
Subs: Trafford, Reijnders, Stones, Cherki, Gonzalez, Savinho, Khusanov, Foden, Lewis.
Newcastle United: Pope, Trippier, Thiaw, Burn, Hall, Ramsey, Willock, Tonali, Elanga, Woltemade, Gordon.
Subs: Ruddy, Ramsdale, Joelinton, Barnes, Osula, J Murphy, A Murphy, Shahar, Neave.
Referee: Thomas Bramall
VAR: James Bell
Preamble
The conditions are perfect; the maths work out just so. If Eddie Howe wants to perform a Vitas Gerulaitis tribute act at 10pm tonight, it’s all there waiting for him. Because you’ll recall the Lithuanian Lion’s gloriously self-deprecating zinger upon snapping a 16-match losing streak against Jimmy Connors in 1980 …
And let that be a lesson to you all. No one beats Vitas Gerulaitis 17 times in a row.
… and Newcastle United have lost on each of their last 16 Premier League visits to the Etihad. So yes, all of the pieces are there, waiting to fall elegantly into place. And while it’s true that history is on the side of Manchester City, and that Pep Guardiola’s team are desperate for all three points with the title race back on, Newcastle won the corresponding fixture at St James’ Park three months ago, so breaking this long miserable sequence is far from a pipe dream. Kick-off is at 8pm GMT, and if the Toon get at least a point tonight, Howe simply has to go there. He’ll never get another chance to reference one of the great sporting bons mots. It’s on!
