Danny Welbeck came off the bench to fire Brighton into the FA Cup quarter-finals at Newcastle as Anthony Gordon’s Carabao Cup final dream was shattered by a late red card.
Welbeck, who scored the winner in the Premier League game at St James’ Park in October, struck in extra time to win it 2-1 on an afternoon when both sides finished with 10 men.
Gordon was sent off for violent conduct in the 83rd minute of a chaotic tie – Tariq Lamptey suffered the same fate eight minutes later after collecting a second yellow card – and faces a three-match ban which will cost him his place in the team for the clash with Liverpool at Wembley on 16 March.
The hosts were without full-back Lewis Hall because of an ankle injury which will require a visit to a specialist, but Alexander Isak’s 22nd-minute penalty gave them a lead which was cancelled out before half time by former Magpie Yankuba Minteh, and an at times scruffy game remained in the balance until Welbeck’s intervention.
Isak had seen a third-minute header from a tight angle blocked by Adam Webster as both sides started with real intent.
Joelinton, back after a five-game absence, almost played his side into trouble with a blind pass to Kieran Trippier which was picked off by Kaoru Mitoma, but Carlos Baleba’s shot was blocked and the Magpies broke to set up Isak to curl a tame 16th-minute effort into the arms of goalkeeper Bart Verbruggen.
However, he was far more clinical from the penalty spot after Minteh – who left the Magpies for the south coast last summer – had felled Tino Livramento with a clumsy challenge. The leading goalscorer thumped the resulting spot kick high into the top corner to open the scoring.
Verbruggen claimed Gordon’s 28th-minute attempt after Isak and Joelinton had combined on halfway but he was relieved to see Isak’s emphatic 32nd-minute finish ruled out for offside after Harvey Barnes had played him in.
Brighton were back in it a minute before the break when the Magpies allowed Minteh to touch Lamptey’s throw-in to Joao Pedro. The Gambian international then ran on to the return pass before stabbing the ball past the advancing Martin Dubravka, with the help of a sizeable deflection off the covering Trippier.
Dubravka saved from Pedro after Livramento and Dan Burn had dallied and Mitoma blazed high and wide from the resulting corner at the start of the second half. The early introduction of Bruno Guimaraes, Joe Willock and Jacob Murphy did little to improve the hosts’ flow.
They were fortunate to escape unpunished when Mitoma turned Pervis Estupinan’s 74th-minute cross across goal. Substitute Diego Gomez curled over two minutes later, and fellow replacement Brajan Gruda was similarly wasteful 11 minutes from normal time.
Newcastle’s afternoon took a turn for the worse when referee Anthony Taylor sent off Gordon for thrusting both hands into defender Jan Paul van Hecke’s face as the pair tussled for the ball.
“I’d need to see it, I can’t sit here and give an honest opinion to that until I’ve done the work that you’ve done and looked at it,” Newcastle boss Eddie Howe said of the incident. “But knowing the player, I know there’s no malice intended there.
“He plays hard – I want him to play hard, I want him to be competitive, but I don’t see an issue there at this moment. “I think it would be very out of context with how he is generally, maybe a bit of frustration in the game that things weren’t going our way, but I’d say that’s not a common sight for me when Anthony plays.”
Lamptey followed him down the tunnel in stoppage time for a second bookable offence, a foul on Murphy. Fabian Schar thought he had won it seconds later when he met Guimaraes’s delivery with a firm volley, only for a VAR check to rule he was offside, and although Dubravka made a stunning stoppage-time save to keep out Gomez’s piledriver, former Sunderland loanee Welbeck struck from fellow substitute Solly March’s through-ball to win it in extra time.
“It’s great to get the winning goal,” the match-winner told ITV. “It was a solid team performance – there was a lot going on in that game today. Lots of ups and downs, but we stuck with it. I’m so proud of the lads.
“Newcastle can always put you under pressure. They are very dangerous, but we stuck to our guns and we put in a great shift.”
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