Newcastle United’s League Cup semi‑final first leg at home to Manchester City on Tuesday night looks set to be an interesting tie between the League Cup's defending champions, who ended a 70‑year wait for silverware last season, and a City arriving hungry for silverware after a trophyless 2024-25 campaign.
The match at St James’ Park comes with a useful recent reference point: Newcastle’s 2–1 Premier League win over City on Tyneside in November 2025, when Harvey Barnes scored twice and the hosts again showed their capacity to trouble elite opposition in front of their own crowd. Across the last five home meetings with City in all competitions, Newcastle have won two, drawn two and lost one, while also knocking City out of the League Cup in each of their last two head‑to‑head ties.
Newcastle come into this semi‑final on the back of an eventful run that has underlined both their attacking strength and occasional defensive looseness. Eddie Howe’s side edged through a dramatic FA Cup third‑round tie at the weekend, drawing 3–3 with Bournemouth before winning 7-6 on penalties, and that followed a sequence of high‑scoring league performances, including a 4-3 win over Leeds United and a more controlled 2–0 victory against Crystal Palace. Across their last five competitive matches in all competitions, Newcastle’s form line reads WWWWL.
Over 2.5 goals have occurred in five of Newcastle's last seven outings, with their last two games alone producing a total of 13 goals. Likewise, BTTS has also occurred in five of their last seven games, while four of the last five head-to-head meetings between the two teams have seen over 2.5 goals, with BTTS landing in three of those.
City arrive with a different but equally compelling statistical profile. Pep Guardiola’s side recently snapped a run of three successive 1-1 Premier League draws with an extraordinary 10–1 FA Cup win over Exeter City, a result that highlighted the attacking ceiling of a team that had previously been frustrated in front of goal. Looking at their last five competitive fixtures, City’s run of WWDDD (including the Exeter cup tie) shows that they have remained difficult to beat, with defensive stability intact, but have also dropped points via those three league stalemates, two of which landed BTTS and underlined a recent pattern of matches where they control territory but do not always convert dominance into victory.
City's recent away fixtures have tended to be high-scoring encounters, with six of their last seven on the road seeing over 2.5 goals scored. Five of those seven have also seen BTTS occur, so we expect this encounter to produce its fair share of goals.
All in all, Newcastle's strength at home should be enough for them to avoid defeat. However, performances haven't been quite so convincing of late, and given City are unbeaten in 12, it will take a huge performance for them to come away with the three points.
Newcastle 2-2 Manchester City
