Key events
10 min: There’s not much of a rhythm to this game. No wonder they’ve hidden it away behind the red button on their Plus channel, eh folks, etc. To be fair, at least they’ve cleaned all the slots of their zoetrope.
8 min: Pickford goes long again. Easy for Hornicek on the edge of his own box, neither Barry nor Dibling anywhere nearby.
6 min: Pickford goes long. Barry tries to burst clear down the inside-right channel, but Burn has a hold of him and there’s no way to wriggle into the box. I think. This is like watching a parody of 1970s iron-curtain children’s programming.
4 min: I say that about the colours: at least that’s what the indistinct shapes on the Sky coverage look like. The def is very lo. A lot of flitting in and out of focus. Allow me to adjust both my aerial and my tin hat, but I wonder if they’d treat a tie involving Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal or Spurs with this level of ill-defined disdain?
2 min: Dewsbury-Hall shoots. Deflected. Nothing comes of the corner. Everton are playing in blue, Newcastle a pinky purple.
The match begins. Sky’s red-button treatment of this game, squirrelled away deep in its planner, is little short of a disgrace.
Some more on the Jack Grealish fiasco … courtesy of our man on Merseyside, Andy Hunter.
PM 4 EFC. Andy Burnham is in the house tonight, offering his support to his beloved Everton. He’s the first prime minister to support the club, though Harold Wilson used to frequent Goodison in the 1960s and 1970s, albeit as a Huddersfield Town fan. Newcastle United have to make do with Tony Blair, famously photographed playing keepy-uppy with Kevin Keegan back in the mid-1990s. As in so many other ways, Clem Attlee rises over Blair and Burnham like a colossus, on account of having actually played the game for non-league Fleet Town, but we’re going well off piste now.
There are only three clubs left in this season’s competition to have previously won the League Cup. Liverpool and Manchester City have 19 wins between them, Newcastle another one. Everton are one of three clubs to have at least reached the final (1977 and 1984), Sunderland (1985 and 2014) and Bradford City (2013) being the other two. Crystal Palace, Bournemouth and Fleetwood Town are yet to make it to a final. So while the door’s not quite yet at the stage of flapping wide open for some history makers to barrel through, it is at least ajar. Possibilities ahoy!
Some more Carabao Cup related news.
Competition rules and reminders.
1. The winner of tonight’s tie will travel to Fleetwood Town for a quarter-final to be played the week commencing 14 December 2026.
2. There is no VAR tonight.
3. Should tonight’s tie be level after 90 minutes plus stoppages, there will be no extra time and instead the match will move straight to …
Team news: Grealish dropped due to ‘breach of Club discipline’
Everton make two changes to their starting XI following last weekend’s 2-0 defeat at Arsenal. Hayden Hackney and Tyler Dibling come in for Brennan Johnson and Harrison Armstrong, who both drop to the bench. Jarrad Branthwaite is unavailable due to concussion protocols, while Jack Grealish has been dropped from the squad “due to a breach of Club discipline”, reportedly the result of an unauthorised absence from training.
Newcastle United make one change to their starting line-up following last weekend’s 2-0 win at Crystal Palace. Jacob Ramsey takes the place of Joelinton, who starts as a sub.
The teams
Everton: Pickford, Rohl, Tarkowski, O’Brien, Mykolenko, Hackney, Garner, Dibling, Dewsbury-Hall, George, Barry.
Subs: Travers, King, Maitland-Niles, Keane, Johnson, Norgaard, Alcaraz, Armstrong, Graham.
Newcastle United: Hornicek, Dedic, Schar, Burn, Hall, Gonzalez, Ramsey, Murphy, Willock, Barnes, Osula.
Subs: Pope, Botman, Joelinton, Bamba, Wissa, Thiaw, Steur, Toure, Elanga.
Referee: Farai Hallam.
Preamble
It wasn’t so long ago that Newcastle United were the watchword for underperforming silverware-repelling giants. But lifting the 2025 League Cup did for that. Now it’s over to Everton, a trophy-hoovering behemoth whose spree started in Victorian times only to come to a juddering and ignominious halt in 1995. It’s about time, and this campaign represents the first stirring of a cup run in a wee while, so people are beginning to talk. Fleetwood Town await the winners of this tie in the quarters, so a pathway is opening up. Is this to be Everton’s year, their first in 31? Or are Newcastle to make it a successful London-buses quest, a second pot in three years after that 56-year wait? Only one of these grand old clubs can keep it going past 10pm or so. Kick-off is at 7.45pm GMT. It’s on!
