As you are no doubt aware, Newcastle United lost 2-0 to Manchester City on Tuesday night.
With that defeat, the chances of United defending their trophy at Wembley look to have all but gone.
As always happens, especially after a defeat, there has been a huge post-mortem amongst Newcastle United fans as to how and why this loss to Manchester City happened.
Some valid points made, as well as a lot of nonsense spoken, as always.
This is my own personal nonsense, or valid points, depending on how you see it.
The reasons why Newcastle United lost to Manchester City
First of all, I am not talking here about a blow by blow account of the match, what Newcastle United players could and should have done in a particular moment, the luck and fine margins.
Instead, I wanted to give the underlying reasons that you could have identified beforehand, matters outside of Newcastle United’s control.
Basically, if these things hadn’t happened ahead of Tuesday night, then Newcastle United would have had a far greater chance of defeating Manchester City, never mind not even getting a draw.
Firstly, Tino Livramento.
Jeremy Doku is Manchester City’s quickest and most dangerous attacking player.
There is no better defender in the Premier League when it comes to matching up with Doku, than Tino Livramento.
We saw that in November at St James’ Park, Tino had Jeremy in his pocket in that United win. You are never going to beat the Newcastle full-back in a fair race and Doku didn’t. In the end he gave up and even though Eddie Howe’s side were leading 2-1, Jeremy Doku was subbed off with a quarter of an hour to go.
Tino Livramento picked up an injury on Saturday in the FA Cup match that ruled him out for a couple of months.
I thought Lewis Miley (and then Kieran Trippier) did ok but it was that side of the pitch where Manchester City and especially Doku, caused most problems.
Secondly, Antoine Semenyo.
You don’t need to look far for stupidity and conspiracy theories online and Newcastle fans claiming that the rules had been changed just ahead of our match, corruption involved, an anti-NUFC thing, whatever, are just plain embarrassing.
The rules were changed before this season kicked off, a player can now play for more than one team in the Carabao Cup in a season.
There was no corruption involved, this decision simply giving the richest and most powerful clubs even more power in trying to win silverware. Like pretty much any change to the rules by the authorities tends to do.
It is true that all clubs COULD take advantage of this BUT it is almost always going to be the case that it will be a rich and powerful club doing so, buying a quality player from a less powerful club, so they can play in the semi-finals/final and potentially make the difference.
Manchester City paid the £65m release clause and agreed huge wages, Antoine Semenyo came in and scored that crucial first goal at St James’ Park and almost a second.
Thirdly, Leeds and Bournemouth.
What a week at St James’ Park leading up to Manchester City.
United following up the first win of 2026 at SJP against Palace, with two more astonishing victories…but they came at a cost.
Eddie Howe’s side came back three times from being behind to eventually defeat Leeds with the latest ever winner in Premier League history, the NUFC players out on their feet by the end after an exhausting effort.
Then on Saturday the extra time that nobody wanted, Eddie Howe’s players eventually winning on penalties against Bournemouth in an FA Cup contest that had kicked off almost three hours earlier.
These games undoubtedly having a huge impact on both Howe’s team selection and especially on the Newcastle players in the later stages on Tuesday night. In comparison, Manchester City had a tough 1-1 home draw against Brighton last Wednesday but then followed it with a 10-1 home stroll against lower league Exeter at the weekend.
Fourthly, Manchester City.
Reports of Man City’s demise may have been slightly exaggerated.
They aren’t the all conquering near unbeatable force of the past, when winning the title year after year.
However, they don’t lose very often do they…
I think they had a bit of a reaction in August due to participation in the ridiculous (but very lucrative…) Club World Cup last summer, losing two of their first three Premier League matches in August 2025.
However, in all competitions, Manchester City have now played 29 further matches in all competitions from September onwards.
Pep Guardiola’s side lost 1-0 away against Villa who were/are in incredible winning form, that defeat on 26 October 2025.
On 22 November they came to St James’ Park and lost 2-1, Newcastle excellent on the day and should have won by more.
Pep throwing his toys out of the pram in frustration at losing and having been outplayed by United, he later admitted he had made a massive blunder when changing his entire team three days later when losing 2-0 at home to Bayer Leverkusen.
That is it. Manchester City losing only those three of 29 matches since August and summed up really just how good Newcastle United would have to be to beat them, again. Eddie Howe’s side needed to put on a near perfect repeat performance of 22 November 2025 to do so and they fell short, plus those fine margins and luck went against them, both ahead of the match and during it.
Newcastle United now simply need to bounce back and repeat a lot of the good things, the quality and the character, that delivered four wins in a row ahead of Tuesday night, as well as of course working on the less positive aspects in those hard fought victories.