\n<\/p>\n
Goodness knows what the man who was not there made of it all. Might Alexander Isak have felt the tiniest bit guilty at the sight of his understudy, Anthony Gordon, missing a couple of extremely presentable chances before becoming so overwrought he was sent off for a ridiculous first-half tackle on Virgil Van Dijk?<\/p>\n
How did Newcastle\u2019s currently striking star striker assess Hugo Ekitik\u00e9\u2019s performance? And, even as he continues to endeavour to engineer a move to Anfield where he hopes to partner Ekitik\u00e9 in Liverpool\u2019s team, did Isak at least half-celebrate Will Osula\u2019s unexpected late Newcastle leveller to make it 2-2 before 16-year-old Rio Ngumoha won it for the \u00adchampions in the 100th minute?<\/p>\n
Given that the Sweden striker was watching from elsewhere in the north-east we will never know. What was abundantly clear though was that the emotions engendered by the summer\u2019s longest and most acrimonious transfer saga provoked a night of compelling, wild drama.<\/p>\n
Arne Slot has said he is closer to Eddie Howe than any other Premier League coach but, if Liverpool and Newcastle\u2019s managers are on friendly texting terms, relations between their teams remain somewhat frostier.<\/p>\n
Sure enough Ryan Gravenberch\u2019s early booking for a wince-inducing tackle on Bruno Guimar\u00e3es set the tone as this rerun of last season\u2019s Carabao Cup final opened at an almost anarchic 100mph.<\/p>\n
If Liverpool wanted revenge for that Wembley defeat, the sheer fury of a Newcastle crowd incensed by the Anfield club\u2019s pursuit of Isak, and their perceived audacity in hijacking Howe\u2019s move for Ekitik\u00e9 transmitted itself to Howe\u2019s team.<\/p>\n
Before too long Gordon would self-destruct but, for a while, he rattled Liverpool. The England winger, once again deputising for Isak out of position at centre-forward, may not be exactly reliable in front of goal but Gordon is extremely clever at winning dangerous free-kicks. Accordingly Slot twice lost his cool complaining that he had blatantly dived after inviting challenges.<\/p>\n
<\/span>Virgil van Dijk shows the injury on his right calf after the tackle by Anthony Gordon that earned the Newcastle striker a red card.<\/span> Photograph: Daniel Chesterton\/Offside\/Getty Images<\/p>\n It was left to a deep-sitting Van Dijk to try to stay calm and slow the tempo at every opportunity. At times they lived dangerously and Alisson Becker would have been relieved to see Gordon head fractionally over the bar after meeting Harvey Barnes\u2019s cross, but the impressive approach work of Sandro Tonali was repeatedly undone by the lack of a specialist striker.<\/p>\n Given that Monday saw Wolves reject a \u00a350m bid from St James\u2019 Park for their centre-forward J\u00f8rgen Strand Larsen, Howe must have been tempted to ask Alan Shearer to swap his seat in a private box for the pitch at half-time.<\/p>\n The directors\u2019 box contained Newcastle\u2019s chair, Yasir \u00adal-Rumayyan. Might one of \u00adal-Rumayyan\u2019s rare visits from Saudi Arabia have been timed to negotiate a deal to sell Isak to Liverpool? Or maybe to tell them they could not have the Sweden striker after all? The boardroom conversation can hardly have been dull.<\/p>\n Neither was a first half initially dominated by a home side who, nonetheless, fell behind when an unsighted Nick Pope was beaten by Gravenberch\u2019s low, slightly deflected shot, from the edge of the area.<\/p>\n Pope could probably count himself slightly fortunate not to have picked the ball out of the net for a second time when Mohamed Salah\u2019s subtly curving cross proved just slightly too clever for a startled looking Ekitik\u00e9.<\/p>\n Not that things were exactly going swimmingly for Howe. Dan Burn rightly saw yellow for catching Salah late before a video assistant referee intervention resulted in Gordon being sent off for poleaxing Van Dijk with an unpleasant, unnecessary and utterly brainless tackle from behind.<\/p>\n Given that it involved the boyhood Liverpool fan and former Evertonian lunging into the back of the defender\u2019s standing leg as Van Dijk attempted to clear the ball, Gordon could hardly complain. Significantly, Howe did not look at him as he headed straight down the tunnel.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Sign up to Football Daily<\/span><\/p>\n Kick off your evenings with the Guardian’s take on the world of football<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.<\/span><\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n His team had arguably paid the price for playing on the edge. Initially all this black-and-white adrenaline had unnerved and unsettled Slot\u2019s side but, not for the first time, Gordon carried things too far and imploded.<\/p>\n Slot had not even emerged from the tunnel when, 23 seconds into the second half, Ekitik\u00e9 showed Newcastle precisely what they are missing. The Frenchman\u2019s burst beyond Tonali and his pass to the left cued up Cody Gakpo. When the Dutchman\u2019s shot was blocked, Ekitik\u00e9 reacted first to the rebound, drilling an unstoppable shot past Pope.<\/p>\n <\/span>William Osula (left) celebrates with Bruno Guimar\u00e3es and Dan Burn after his 88th-minute equaliser.<\/span> Photograph: Andy Buchanan\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Either side of their goals, Liverpool had enjoyed surprisingly few touches in Newcastle\u2019s area but their efficiency when it mattered had hurt Howe\u2019s players.<\/p>\n Not that it was quite over just yet. When Tino Livramento curled a cross into the area, Guimar\u00e3es capitalised on slapdash defending by Milos Kerkez to head Newcastle\u2019s 10 men right back into things.<\/p>\n For a while Liverpool seemed the team at a numerical disadvantage but then injuries began debilitating Howe\u2019s team. They could certainly have done without losing Tonali, with a nasty looking shoulder injury, before the influential Joelinton limped off as Jacob Ramsey stepped off the bench to make his home debut after a \u00a340m move from Aston Villa.<\/p>\n Ramsey though was not the night\u2019s most influential home substitute. That honour looked like being afforded to Osula. The Denmark Under-21 forward may not be quite the finished article but Osula is at least a proper centre-forward and when Dan Burn overpowered Ibrahima Konat\u00e9 to meet Pope\u2019s long kick, Osula nipped in, stretched out a boot and equalised.<\/p>\n Unfortunately for Howe a visiting replacement proved an even bigger gamechanger. The game had reached the 100th minute when Ngumoha marked his Premier League debut by adroitly curling a wonderful shot beyond Pope.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Goodness knows what the man who was not there made of it all. Might Alexander Isak have felt the tiniest bit guilty at the sight of his understudy, Anthony Gordon, missing a couple of extremely presentable chances before becoming so overwrought he was sent off for a ridiculous first-half tackle on Virgil Van Dijk? How<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17774,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[10772,10771,10769,3504,2069,7895,10770,1706,173,5290,802],"class_list":{"0":"post-17773","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-100thminute","9":"tag-10man","10":"tag-16yearold","11":"tag-league","12":"tag-liverpool","13":"tag-newcastle","14":"tag-ngumoha","15":"tag-premier","16":"tag-rio","17":"tag-stuns","18":"tag-winner"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17773\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}