Everton assume control of this tie with a quick one-two, and with Fleetwood Town waiting in the quarters, dreams of a march to the semi-finals may be a tad previous … but also understandable! It's party time at the HDS.
Barnes shoots. A deflected shot is gathered by Pickford, who sends Dewsbury-Hall off on the counter. Ramsey clips Dewsbury-Hall, but the ball breaks to Barry on the left, so the referee waves play on. Barry clips the cross back into the centre, and Hackney, rushing in, opens his body to slot across Hornicek and into the bottom left!
43 min: Barnes and Osula combine at close quarters on the penalty spot. Osula goes over. No penalty. Then Barnes is clipped lightly by Tarkowski, though it's not enough for the referee. Erm. Indistinct colours clashing, a bit like this …
41 min: Tarkowski runs the ball out of play down the left for a corner. He wears the look of a guilty man, and waits for a whistle that doesn't come. So then he clears his lines. At least the ball over the line in super non-sharp lo-def … but let's not belabour the point any more.
39 min: Some pinball in the Everton box. The ball breaks to Barnes, on the left-hand corner of the six-yard box. He drags a weak shot wide left. Newcastle have not achieved very much since falling behind.
38 min: A throw for Everton deep in Toon territory down the right. O'Brien flings it long. Some shoving. Ramsey wins a free kick and Newcastle clear their lines. "At least the teams are wearing contrasting shirts," begins the text written on Andy (not that one) Flintoff's subterranean bar, "so if Sky decided to go back to B/W (to save more bandwidth than they already are doing with their high picture compression) you could tell them apart."
36 min: That's got the Hill Dickinson bouncing. Newcastle have been the better side on balance – just about – but Everton have come up with the one moment of true quality. They'll be heading to Fleetwood for a December quarter-final as things stand!
Out of nothing, a moment of sheer quality! Pickford goes long down the left. George gets the better of Dedic and lays off to Hackney, who shuttles further infield for Garner, who lets the ball roll across him before whistling an unstoppable shot across Hornicek and into the bottom right! Lovely goal.
32 min: Osula felt that block from Tarkowski, and he needs a little bit of treatment. He should be fine to continue, though. It's not quite sparked, this match. "I think Jack Grealish might be onto something with his little No Show at training," quips Chris Paraskevas.
30 min: Willock feeds Osula in the Everton box down the left. Osula shoots. Tarkowski blocks; he had to. Everton counter through Garner down the right, but with blue shirts in the middle, the resulting cross is not good.
28 min: Barry chases a loose ball. Schar gets there first and batters it straight into him. A throw is one. Pleasingly old-school, like the 405-line Marconi-EMI system used by Sky Sports the BBC in the 1930s.
26 min: Dibling drags a poor shot wide right. He had options in the middle; poor decision. "You say it's Andy Burnham in the house but it looks like Andoni Iraola has come to curse it," writes Ian Copestake, who doesn't say whether he's viewing this MBM through the Sky Sports + Zoetrope system.
25 min: George has a dig from the edge of the box. His shot is deflected and nearly drops to Hackney on the penalty spot, but the luck's not with Everton here and Newcastle are able to toe-poke clear. The home crowd, muttering away with concern not so long ago, are vocal now.
23 min: Dibling teases Hall down the right and wins Everton their first corner of the evening. Dewsbury-Hall swings it in. Barnes larrups the dropping ball clear. A decent response from Everton, who were on the ropes for a while back there.
21 min: Mykolenko and George combine crisply down the left. A low cross comes in. Hackney meets it at the near stick with a sidefoot, but doesn't get any purchase on the shot, which dribbles into the arms of Hornicek. That's better from Everton, though.
19 min: Barnes dribbles hard down the inside-left channel. His shot-cum-cross is deflected back to Pickford by Dibling. It's all Newcastle right now.
18 min: Now Schar has a pop from distance. Pickford parries. Newcastle are suddenly completely on top, and there are a few murmurs coming down from the HDS stands.
16 min: Now it's Barnes' turn to win possession far too easily in the midfield. He slips in Willock down the left. Willock shoots from a tight angle. Pickford spills, but there's a nearby blue smudge available to clear.
14 min: Hall wins a 40-60 in the midfield, Rohl allowing him to win a challenge he never should have won. He powers down the left and feeds Barnes, who enters the box and tees up Murphy, who can't get a shot away. Ramsey then has a go, but Mykolenko gets in the road. Some last-ditch defending allows Everton to get away with a big one. Newcastle should have worked Pickford at the very least.
12 min: Gonzalez, quarterbacking from deep, pings a long diagonal towards Barnes, on the left-hand corner of the six-yard box. Barnes heads goalwards, but straight at Pickford, who tips around the post. Nothing comes of the resulting corner.
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 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 …
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.
Pickford, Rohl, Tarkowski, O'Brien, Mykolenko, Hackney, Garner, Dibling, Dewsbury-Hall, George, Barry.
Subs: Travers, King, Maitland-Niles, Keane, Johnson, Norgaard, Alcaraz, Armstrong, Graham.
Hornicek, Dedic, Schar, Burn, Hall, Gonzalez, Ramsey, Murphy, Willock, Barnes, Osula.
Subs: Pope, Botman, Joelinton, Bamba, Wissa, Thiaw, Steur, Toure, Elanga.
Farai Hallam.
It wasn't so long ago that Newcastle United were 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 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!