Guardiola did not arrive on Tyneside in the best of moods. City's failure to organise a plane to fly their team the 150 miles south west across the Pennines back to Manchester dictated that the squad faced a three-hour coach journey home.
Even without such logistical problems, this was a tie Guardiola could almost certainly have done without. With John Stones, Kevin De Bruyne and Bernardo Silva among those first-teamers injured, and Rodri suspended, City's manager had said he "would not waste 1% of energy" on a fixture so close to his side's Premier League visit to Wolves on Saturday and Champions League trip to RB Leipzig next Wednesday.
Eddie Howe had seemed sceptical about that stance yet Guardiola, four times a League Cup winner, made eight changes to his starting lineup.
Indeed despite protesting that "all competitions are equal" Howe evidently had one eye on not merely Saturday's Premier League date with Burnley here but next Wednesday's much-anticipated home game against Paris Saint-Germain. Why else would Newcastle's manager have made 10 alterations to the side which thrashed Sheffield United 8-0 at Bramall Lane last Sunday, with Nick Pope the sole survivor?
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