Newcastle are on their way to Wembley as far as their admirable away support is concerned. A double strike from the normally innocuous Miguel Almirón helped put them into the last eight, just a game away from a trip to London, and though there are still some big teams left the near 50% of respondees who told a Newcastle Chronicle survey they wouldn’t mind being relegated if they could go down as FA Cup winners are one step nearer to their wish.
It may not come to that, Newcastle could enjoy a Cup run and stay up, especially if they can keep up this new-found facility for scoring goals. Certainly their following have not enjoyed themselves as loudly or as long all season, though they cannot expect to play West Brom every week.
The unexpected defeat by Wigan in the last match seemed to have knocked the confidence of the Championship leaders, whose team selection left no one in doubt promotion is their overriding priority. That said, Newcastle fans were peeping through their fingers at the end as the home side successfully chipped away at what should have been an unassailable 3-0 lead.
“It wouldn’t be Newcastle without a drama,” Steve Bruce said. “We made hard work of it after playing well. The last 10 minutes spoiled it for us a little bit. We have to stop switching off in matches.”
Slaven Bilic was disappointed. “We are not a club that wants to be proud of going close,” the West Brom manager said. “We gave them far too much respect for an hour. We showed character in coming back but I cannot be happy with the result.”
The game was lively from the off. Newcastle had a chance to go in front in under three minutes when Gareth Barry was caught in possession just outside his own area but though Nabil Bentaleb squared to the better placed Almirón the Paraguayan’s first touch let him down when he would have been clear on goal. Not to be outdone West Brom came straight down the field and almost scored at the other end, Kyle Edwards putting a lot of power into his shot from the edge of the area yet finding Karl Darlow’s reactions equal to it.
Newcastle were doing most of the attacking by the mid-point of the first half, as befitted a side that had only made a conservative six changes from their last league game. Bilic’s response to losing at home to Wigan at the weekend was to replace nine of his players, which made you wonder whether either side really wanted to reach the sixth round. Newcastle had gone four league games without a goal and really needed something to show for their first-half superiority, because the long wait seemed to be affecting their composure in attack. When a corner dropped invitingly to Sean Longstaff on the edge of the area he had time to line up a shot but in his haste he hit the ball early and wide.
When Allan Saint-Maximin hit the post with a dipping drive from 30 yards it began to appear Newcastle’s luck might be out but the same player managed to change that impression just past the half hour with a telling midfield break and a neat ball behind the West Brom central defenders for Almirón to run on to.
This time he was clear on goal and made no mistake, calmly waiting for Johnathan Bond to commit himself before slipping the ball past him. The 5,000 travelling fans at the opposite end reacted to the first Toon goal in over six hours with wild celebrations and a few premature mentions of Wembley, which is fair enough considering they had not seen their side reach the fifth round for 14 years, let alone take a lead.
Right on the stroke of the interval that lead was doubled, with Almirón striking again to record his first Newcastle double. When Joelinton received the ball following a Valentino Lazaro run down the right he was facing away from goal, and his improvised backheel towards the penalty spot looked hopeful, yet Almirón not only reached it at a stretch he managed to find the top corner in the act of sliding to the floor.
The tie seemed to be over when the visitors scored a third just minutes into the second half. Almirón and Saint-Maximin combined once again, and though the latter put his cross too close to the goalkeeper all Bond could manage was to push the ball into the oncoming Lazaro, who bundled it over the line. VAR might have checked for handball but in its absence the goal stood with few complaints.
Filip Krovinovic and Edwards went close for the home side before Matty Phillips pulled a goal back with 15 minutes remaining to set up a tense finale. Newcastle were already finding closing out the game tougher than it ought to have been when Kenneth Zohore stabbed in from close range to make the last few seconds even more frantic but there was no time left for any further shocks.
