Are the stars aligning for Newcastle United? Tonight's Carabao Cup quarter-final draw may just offer another clue.
Eddie Howe simply has one preference - to play next month's one-off tie at home - but the Newcastle boss already knows that Arsenal, Spurs, Chelsea and either Man City or Liverpool won't be joining his side in the hat. Six of the seven opponents Newcastle could face are, admittedly, fellow Premier League sides, but this still feels like a real opportunity for the Magpies to reach a first League Cup semi-final since 1976.
The last time Newcastle were in this position, exactly two years ago, the black-and-whites blew it away to Brentford's reserves after supposedly getting a kind quarter-final draw against a team playing in the Championship at the time. Yes, anything can happen in the cup, but Newcastle's performance that night was pitiful. Even Steve Bruce admitted: "It's not often you can get to a semi-final or a final. They might never get there again."
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Joelinton, Jonjo Shelvey, Sean Longstaff, Miguel Almiron and Callum Wilson are among the survivors from that night who will be desperate to prove that won't be the case. In truth, this is a completely different club 730 days on.
Newcastle now have the resources and manager to truly attack this competition and Howe already knows the cups can be a springboard for resurgent clubs with big long-term ambitions. Chelsea, for instance, won the League Cup in 2005 before going on to end their title drought while Man City lifted the FA Cup in 2011 before winning the Premier League themselves. Newcastle have a long way to go, of course, before the Magpies challenge for titles, but ask anyone involved at Chelsea or City at the time and they will tell you those cup wins were the crucial first trophies of a new era.
Few know the value of a cup win better than Jose Mourinho, who has lifted the Carabao Cup a record-equalling four times, and it was the Portuguese who gave the once derided competition a new level of respect when he arrived on these shores with Chelsea in 2004. Some of Chelsea's players at the time had never won silverware and Mourinho felt lifting the first trophy on offer would give his squad a much-needed taste of success going into the final months of the campaign. It is certainly not a coincidence that when Mourinho won the League Cup with Chelsea in 2005, 2007 and 2015 and with Manchester United in 2017, further trophies followed just a few months later.
As obvious as it sounds, Mourinho used to tell his players that the League Cup required just five or six wins to get to Wembley and play for a trophy. That is quite a carrot.
"If there is any secret, it’s to take it seriously," Mourinho said after reaching a fifth Carabao Cup final with Spurs. "It's to respect what English football is, what English clubs are, what English lower divisions are, and try not to be surprised in any of the games with teams of smaller quality."
Howe already knows that 'secret' and told his players 'from day one' that he wanted to win a cup. These were not empty words; the Newcastle boss backed them up before a ball was even kicked in the last 16 tie against Bournemouth on Tuesday night by fielding his strongest side. This XI included the club's World Cup contingent, who only returned to proper training with the group a few days previously.
While Newcastle were not at their fluid best in the 1-0 win - it was both teams' first game since the World Cup break - the hosts found a way to win at St James' Park to make it into the last eight. Now comes the real test.
"I've been in the quarter-final a couple of times with Bournemouth and never got past the quarter-final stage," Howe told reporters. "They are special games. Now you're going into the business end of the competition. You're a couple of big wins away from hopefully an incredible experience."
Although Howe has visualised ending Newcastle's trophy drought, to believe it really is possible following 67 years without domestic silverware, the Magpies boss is not looking too far ahead. When it was put to Howe that a cup could one day act as a bridge to even bigger trophies, like it was for Chelsea and City in the past, the Newcastle boss admitted you would 'love to win something as quickly as possible before warning 'the only thing you can control is the game by game step'.
That mentality will serve Newcastle well - whoever they face in the last eight.
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