After all, hope lives on in Newcastle. Just when Eddie Howe’s players seemed to be slipping towards mediocrity, a place in the last eight of the Carabao Cup changed a whole story.

As well as opening up the tantalizing possibility of this cup win to secure a long-awaited title and thereby secure a backdoor route to Europe, this cup win also helps mask the off-stage tensions that have contributed to Newcastle’s recent disappointing form contributed in the Premier League.

It helped that Chelsea’s radically revamped squad pointed out that Enzo Maresca wasn’t exactly prioritizing this competition. It seemed somehow significant that he left Cole Palmer on the bench the entire time while Nicolas Jackson didn’t even travel to the Northeast. Perhaps equally tellingly, at the final whistle, Palmer, who had been warming up again and again, appeared to ask the Maresca coaching staff why he had not been sent in to try and outshine Alexander Isak and co.

While Howe opted for a gentle rotation, making five changes to the eleven that started last Sunday’s 2-1 Premier League defeat at Stamford Bridge, Maresca changed Chelsea’s entire line-up. Perhaps this massive exodus of 11 players was responsible for the first moment of kamikaze-like defensive chaos, which Isak initiated with an inviting cross and Joelinton spurned a striker from close range after misfiring an attempted right-footed shot.

However, despite Chelsea’s repeated self-destructive behavior on one side, their counter-attacking tempo ensured they were still able to threaten the home defense and it took a timely save from Sandro Tonali to divert Renato Veiga’s shot into the goal.

As Maresca’s team increasingly, if deceptively, appeared to be more confident in possession, Howe urged his players to push their visitors harder and higher, and this policy soon paid off. A mix of overconfidence and nonchalance as Chelsea’s Benoît Badiashile and Veiga tried to pass out from behind was met with ruthless pressing from Joelinton and Tonali.

After Joelinton’s attack had brought Veiga to a standstill, Tonali pushed the ball into Isak’s path and the recently out-of-action Swedish striker happily passed it into the net. After five Premier League games without a win, Howe needed a trophy boost and his smile duly broadened when Axel Disasi could only head home Joe Willock’s header after the midfielder had headed home with a menacing shot from Isak.

Although Nick Pope had to deftly parry to deny João Félix, Maresca’s insistence that his players continue to try and pass the ball around in defense generated the optimism that has recently been all too clearly evoked by his absence from the Gallowgate End.

Chelsea repeatedly fell into a classic Howe trap and the only mystery was why Chelsea’s coach instructed his charges to change tactics. Finally, in the last round here, AFC Wimbledon ensured that Newcastle remained extremely quiet in open play, thanks to a straight-line deep block and the kind of long-ball attacking play that might have caused a shock on another night.

Instead, the second half had barely begun when Maresca goalkeeper Filip Jörgensen was forced to dribble past the onrushing Anthony Gordon deep in his six-yard box after attempting a rather reckless one-two with a defender.

While Chelsea could have reduced the deficit had Lloyd Kelly, who played a decent game after a rare start at the heart of the Newcastle defense, not somehow blocked Christopher Nkunku’s shot, they struggled to cope with Willock.

Like Kelly, he took the chance to start a game and Chelsea certainly struggled to cope with Willock’s ability to persistently glide 30 or 40 yards up the pitch.

When Willock, who missed most of last season through injury, was replaced by Bruno Guimãraes midway through the second period, he had probably done enough to convince Howe to include him in his first eleven for Saturday’s league game against his old one Club Arsenal to name here. Chelsea had little choice but to live dangerously and Maresca duly instructed Marc Cucurella to increasingly abandon his nominal left-back position and act as an additional midfielder. While this ploy sometimes gave Newcastle opportunities, it also proved capable of stretching the team to its limits at times.

Although Howe’s defense was spared because Félix, much to Maresca’s dismay, shot wide with the goal at his mercy, Sean Longstaff thought he had headed in his side’s third goal, only to have that shot ruled out for offside was disallowed while substitute William Osula hit a post. By then, however, Newcastle had done enough.