Enzo Maresca's cagey eight-word response to what Newcastle United star did against Chelsea
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The two clubs faced each other for the second time in four days, and the Magpies were able to avenge their weekend lost by winning 2-0 at St James’ Park to advance into the quarter-finals of the Carabao Cup.
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Hide AdAlexander Isak opened the scoring in the 23rd minute before his cross moments later was flicked goalwards by Joe Willock and turned into his own net by Axel Diasi.
"I didn't see a big difference," said Maresca on Newcastle. “The last game they were more or less in the same way as tonight, they tried to be aggressive and last Sunday and today we did quite well.
"The first goal is one we can avoid. We knew playing through the middle they can be quite aggressive so the solution should have been to go outside. I didn't see big difference between tonight and two days ago. For them, they needed to win this game to build a bit of momentum.
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Hide Ad"If we analyse the performance. For 23 minutes, until their goal, we were in control and didn't concede anything. Then after the goal we lost control for 10 minutes. But the last 10 minutes of the first half we had chances but unfortunately didn't score.
"And in the second half we were in control of the game. The most important thing is the result but we lost the game because of 10 minutes. For the rest we were quite good."
Meanwhile, Maresca offered a cagey response when asked Anthony Gordon’s second-half tackle on Marc Cucurella. The Chelsea manager suggested Gordon, who received a yellow card, should have been sent off.
He said: "I prefer not to talk about the referee."
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