IN ANY other season, he wouldn’t even have been on the pitch.
Antoine Semenyo’s 45-minute outing against Brentford in September, when Bournemouth made a tame exit, would have meant he was cup-tied.
But the EFL’s pre-season rule change, which had Eddie Howe gritting his teeth on Monday, allowed Manchester City’s new £62.5million recruit the chance to send his new side half-way down Wembley Way.
A close-range finish, stealing in front of Anthony Gordon and walking the ball home from a couple of yards, will not be the best goal of Semenyo’s City career.
He will hope it is not the most important, either. There may be many more.
If this had been last weekend in the FA Cup, with no VAR, it would have been two in 10 minutes.
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Semenyo diverted a Tijjani Reijnders corner past Nick Pope, who was wrestling with Erling Haaland.
Haaland, who was otherwise peripheral all night, was standing in advance of Pope and Malick Thiaw but with one of his orange boots goal-side of the home keeper.
The longest of VAR checks came back with the correct, “subjective” offside call after Chris Kavanagh went to the pitch-side monitor.
That gave Newcastle hope, one they could not realise.
Instead, Rayan Cherki plunged the dagger again in the eighth minute of stoppage time.
Pep Guardiola could have wished for little more than taking a priceless semi-final advantage back to Manchester.
Especially given that he was shorn of his three best defenders and without a holding midfielder.
By the time the second leg is played at the Etihad next month, Guardiola might have added Marc Guehi or another superstar to his ranks, while Semenyo will be more bedded in, too.
Haaland might have emerged from his mid-winter goal hibernation – now just one in six matches – as well.
And while it would be folly for the City fans who were celebrating high up in the Leazes End to book their hotels in London on March 15, they can maybe start looking at the train timetables.
Howe’s face told its own story.
He knew that this was a missed opportunity for his side – after a night which started with, well, a huge missed opportunity.
Only four minutes had elapsed of what was to prove a deeply underwhelming first half when Newcastle created the sort of opening that simply had to finish in the back of the net.
It fell to Yoane Wissa, the former Brentford man, selected ahead of Nick Woltemade, found in front of goal by Jacob Murphy’s instant pass.
Wissa had time to take a touch and set himself, 14 yards out, staring into the whites of James Trafford’s eyes, only to blast over the bar.
You have to convert those. Wissa knew it. Howe too.
Instead, for all the huff and puff, with Newcastle tearing into tackles as the roars rose in intensity, there was little to write home about for half the game.
Haaland barely saw the ball, let alone touched it, Wissa’s shot the only attempt of note from either side in the opening period.
The tension was cloying, evidenced when Nico O’Reilly and Joelinton were booked after a schoolyard skirmish – detention and 500 lines each would have been a more fitting punishment – before Matheus Nunes was rightly cautioned for hacking Gordon down.
Yet the second period was altogether different, as if Howe had laid down the message that it was now or never for his men, the baying of the Gallowgate growing in intensity, then quietened by events, before returning with gusto.
The drama started early with a double escape for Trafford, grateful to both his crossbar and then, seconds later, his right-hand post.
A clawing leap and the woodwork kept out Wissa’s looping header but Newcastle recycled the ball and Bruno Guimaraes’s stinging effort rattled back off the upright.
Eight minutes after the break, enter Semenyo, who had otherwise been overshadowed by Jeremy Doku on the City left.
Indeed, the Belgian was the instigator, too good for Lewis Miley before a low centre which was touched on by Bernardo Silva, allowing Semenyo to do the necessary from point-blank range.
Newcastle looked to respond, Sven Botman rising at the back post to head a deep corner goalwards but seeing his effort hit Trafford and slip wide.
When Semenyo set off on his second celebration run soon afterwards, nudging home when Reijnders delivered an inswinging corner with his first contribution, it looked all over.
Communications between Tyneside and the Stockley Park bunker eventually got to the right answer, with Joelinton geeing up the home fans after the let-off was confirmed.
Newcastle, though, could not turn that into salvation, Woltemade wanting an age when he needed to be decisive from fellow substitute Harvey Barnes late on.
When Cherki swept home from Rayan Ait-Nouri’s pull back deep in stoppage time, the return leg seemed academic.
The Magpies haven’t won at the Etihad since 2014. It will be one of the great turn arounds if they can pull it off. You can’t see it.
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