Capital One Cup review: Lewis McGugan piled further misery on Steve McClaren as Sky Bet Championship Sheffield Wednesday dumped Barclays Premier League Newcastle out of the Capital One Cup.
A Wednesday side featuring 10 changes to the one which started Saturday’s 3-2 victory over Fulham secured a famous 1-0 victory at St James’ Park with the Magpies, who have publicly reversed their recent policy of dismissing the domestic cup competitions as an irrelevance, turning in another dreadful display.
McClaren’s men did not manage a single shot of note on target over 90 soul-sapping minutes and have now won just one of the eight games they have contested so far this season with League Two Northampton their only victims in the last round of the same competition.
The former England manager fielded as strong a team as he dared, but having insisted in recent weeks that he has enough strikers with the club having not pushed home their interest in QPR’s Charlie Austin during the summer, started without any of them.
His hands were tied to a degree with Aleksandar Mitrovic completing his three-match ban and Papiss Cisse and Emmanuel Riviere injured, but with Ayoze Perez sitting on the bench, it was number 10 Siem de Jong who was asked to lead the line.
Not unexpectedly, it was a task which proved beyond the Holland international as ponderous build-up and woeful service shackled the Magpies during the opening 45 minutes.
Wednesday were looking increasingly threatening on the break and Krul was relieved to see Modou Sougou fire wide of the far post after blocking his initial 64th-minute effort.
Perez hit the side-netting after turning smartly on Sissoko’s pass four minutes later, but it was the visitors who took the lead with 14 minutes remaining when the home side failed to deal with a ball into the box and when it broke to McGugan, he drilled it past Krul.
At Old Trafford Anthony Martial stepped off the bench and scored his fourth goal in four matches as Manchester United strolled into the fourth round with a 3-0 win over Ipswich.
United’s 4-0 defeat to MK Dons in this competition last year is regarded as the worst loss of Dutchman Louis van Gaal’s tenure and there was no way he was going to let Ipswich record a similar result on Wednesday.
The United boss sent out a near full-strength side, and they spared little energy dispatching an Ipswich team that contained 11 changes.
Wayne Rooney scored his first goal in domestic competition this season, taking down Daley Blind’s long pass before beating Ipswich goalkeeper Bartosz Bialkowski.
Andreas Pereira, making his first start, netted his maiden strike for the club - a dipping free-kick from 20 yards — before Martial raced through and prodded the ball home in injury time to continue his excellent start to life at Old Trafford.
Meanwhile, Chelsea continued to rebuild their season as they eased past Walsall to advance to the fourth round.
Ramires, Loic Remy and Kenedy, on his full debut, put the visitors in control before Pedro’s late strike secured a comfortable 4-1 win.
The competitive Saddlers pulled a goal back through James O’Connor before half-time but they could not cope with Chelsea’s power as the holders cruised into the fourth round.
They now head to Newcastle, a club in a real crisis following their cup exit to Sheffield Wednesday, in the Barclays Premier League on Saturday aiming to claw back the gap to Manchester City at the top.
At Selhurst Park Dwight Gayle’s second half hat-trick fired Crystal Palace to a 4-1 win over south London rivals Charlton.
The striker’s treble meant Eagles manager Alan Pardew enjoyed a satisfying night against the team he managed for two years and suffered relegation from the Premier League with in 2007.
But for Alou Diarra it was a nightmare evening, the former France international giving away two penalties before being sent off.
Gayle hammered home both spot-kicks — after Fraizer Campbell opened the scoring - and he nodded in the fourth while Mouhamadou-Naby Sarr pulled one back for Charlton.
Meanwhile Shane Long was among the scorers as Southampton ran out 6-0 winners away to MK Dons while Norwich convincingly beat Premier League rivals West Brom to advance.
