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Newcastle United 2-1 Blackburn Rovers
Match Reports, 21:25, January 7, 2012
Jonas Gutierrez fired home deep in stoppage time to send Newcastle United through to the fourth round of the FA Cup.
Blackburn's David Goodwillie opened the scoring with 35 minutes on the clock when he tapped home from a yard after Tim Krul had saved from Grant Hanley's header. But Blackburn never really looked like extending their lead and when Hatem Ben Arfa beat four men before firing home with 15 minutes left to play, he grabbed his side a deserved equaliser.
Newcastle pushed for a winner, but it looked like their chance had gone until Gutierrez met Leon Best's cross and lofted the ball over Mark Bunn in the Blackburn goal with just 20 seconds to play.
With Newcastle missing Demba Ba and Cheick Tiote and Blackburn without Christopher Samba and Junior Hoilett it was never going to be a classic, but the home side started brightly.
Bunn had to be alert early on, with Best, Gutierrez and Yohan Cabaye all forcing good saves from the Blackburn keeper within the first ten minutes.
The visitors weathered this early storm and although Ben Arfa looked sharp, Newcastle seemed to be lacking the sort of consistent goal threat offered by Ba.
Blackburn were industrious but lacked the creativity needed to unlock the Newcastle defence. But they threatened from set pieces and when Morten Gamst Pedersen's corner found the head of Hanley, Krul could only palm it into the path of Goodwillie who fired home from close range.
Blackburn held on for the rest of the first half and with Newcastle failing to recreate their early openings it seemed they were heading for the fourth round.
The opening exchanges of the second 45 minutes did little to dispel this feeling and Newcastle began to look like a side suffering from their midweek exertions against Manchester United.
But when Ben Arfa found a little bit of magic to unlock the Bolton defence and score one of the goals of the season there was only going to be one winner.
With 15 minutes left to play Blackburn, as so often this season, dropped deeper and deeper inviting Newcastle on to them.
Just three minutes after the equaliser, Mike Williamson headed against the bar from a Ryan Taylor corner, while Shola Ameobi was close to pouncing on the rebound after Bunn saved Cabaye's shot.
When Ameobi fired wide with one minute left to play it looked like Newcastle's chance had gone, but with just seconds remaining Gutierrez popped to send the home fans into raptures.
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