Manchester United enjoyed a better spell in the early stages of the second half, but it was otherwise too tepid a performance from Erik ten Hag’s side and Joe Willock piled on the misery with a third.
How the game unfolded
There was a blow for Eddie Howe and Newcastle with only a couple of minutes on the clock when Matt Targett went down injured and was unable to continue. Almiron was the player who came on, forcing an immediate reshuffle from the visitors, but it was the Paraguayan who drew first blood.
Neither side had created much of note as the clock ticked towards half an hour – Casemiro tested Martin Dubravka from 20 yards without any real power to his effort – but Newcastle had settled into the game well despite the near wholesale changes from their last game.
Almiron owed his opening goal to the work of right-back Tino Livramento. The 20-year-old won the ball back in his own half, before driving forward and finding his teammate in the box for a neat finish.
The travelling Newcastle fans were louder than the usually vocal home support. “Tino, Tino, Tino!” were the cries from the Geordie contingent inside Old Trafford, before their attention turned to Ten Hag, goading the Dutchman with chants of, “Sacked in the morning!”
It then got even worse for the hosts when a well worked Newcastle move down the left and clip into the box was only partially cleared by Harry Maguire. As the ball dropped, Hall watched it all the way onto his left foot and guided his volley into the far corner beyond the reach of Andre Onana.
The Red Devils had been guilty of wayward shooting for much of the first half, but a short spell of sustained pressure right before half-time at least saw Mason Mount unleash a powerful drive from all of 30 yards that was on target and stung the palms of Dubravka.
Ten Hag turned to his bench at the interval, bringing Aaron Wan-Bissaka back for his first appearance after a seven-week injury layoff. The right-back, on in place of the poor Diogo Dalot, immediately injected something extra, combining well with Antony that led to a near post chance for Anthony Martial. Sofyan Amrabat was also thrown into the mix and the hosts were in a degree of control.
But any hopes of a fightback were firmly extinguished by Willock’s stunner. Amrabat was dispossessed by Joelinton in midfield, with the loose ball breaking to Willock. He then surged forward as the space opened up in front of him and duly obliged with a clinical bottom corner finish.
The final stages of the game were more of a procession, with Ten Hag’s seeming to accept that they were beaten as soon as Newcastle had extended their lead to three goals. Sean Longstaff, captaining his boyhood club on his milestone 150th appearance, was only inches away from making it 4-0 when a dipping half volley from the edge of the penalty area flashed narrowly wide of the post.
Old Trafford was emptying long before the final whistle, with more vacant red seats visible than fans still filling them by the game ends. The inquest will continue into what is going wrong this season for Manchester United. But for Newcastle United, there is now a growing chance that, come February, this competition could yield their first major trophy since 1969.
