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Published : 11 May 2025, 09:39 PM
An early goal from Sandro Tonali and a late Bruno Guimaraes effort gave Newcastle United a 2-0 home win over Chelsea on Sunday that moves the Magpies a step closer to Champions League football next season, with Blues striker Nicholas Jackson denting his side's hopes by being sent off in the first half.
The win leaves Newcastle in third spot on 66 points, three ahead of Chelsea, who hold the fifth and final Champions League spot with two games to play.
Aston Villa are level with Chelsea on points, with Nottingham Forest, who were playing already-relegated Leicester City later on Sunday, two points further back.
Newcastle were good value for their win but it was Jackson's moment of madness that robbed Chelsea of their best goal-scoring option in a game the Conference League finalists could not afford to lose if they wanted to be at Europe's top table next season.
The Blues got off to a bad start when midfielder Tonali ghosted in at the far post to steer home a pass from Jacob Murphy in the second minute, delighting the home crowd as they basked in the bright sunshine.
Newcastle's task appeared to get easier when Jackson had his initial yellow card upgraded to a red in the 35th minute after a long VAR review, with the replay showing that the Senegalese striker had looked in the direction of Newcastle's Dan Burn before leading with his elbow towards the defender's face.
Despite going down to 10 men, Chelsea dominated for much of the second half, forcing Eddie Howe to make a number of changes to bolster his side's defence and, after withstanding Chelsea's onslaught, Guimaraes finally sealed the three points with a deflected shot from outside the box in the 90th minute.
"We knew how important today was. We said that (the League Cup) final was our biggest game but this was the next one after, and it wasn't pretty, but we've got the job done at this stage so I don't really care," Newcastle's Burn told broadcaster TNT.
"I think sometimes it's hard when they go down to 10 men because you should feel like you dominate but there's always that little bit of you that doesn't want to let them back into it. The crowd were a bit nervous, I think we felt a bit nervous as well," he added.
"But listen, I think we've been together three or four years now, we've got that big-game experience and I thought we did really well to see the game out."
Newcastle visit the Emirates to play Arsenal next Sunday before rounding off their season at home to Everton, while Chelsea host Manchester United before taking on Nottingham Forest away in their last two league games, with the Conference League final against Real Betis on May 28.
