Newcastle told to issue 'immediate bans' as footage from Man City defeat emerges

Newcastle have been urged to issue 'immediate bans' after footage prior to the Magpies' 3-1 FA Cup defeat to Manchester City went viral on social media.

Despite going 1-0 up through Harvey Barnes, Newcastle were dumped out of another cup competition by City after a strike from Savinho and a brilliant brace from Omar Marmoush, who has scored half of his goals in English football against the North East outfit.

And while St James' Park is deemed to be one of the best stadiums in England for its atmosphere, some pre-match scenes at the ground caused uproar on social media.

City new boy Antoine Semenyo, a substitute for the fifth round clash, was filmed signing autographs ahead of the 8pm kick-off.

But with City's near-5000 strong travelling party in the top tier, Semenyo was actually signing and taking autographs with those in the home section pitchside.

One individual even had a sky blue City shirt for Semenyo to sign. The video on amassed one million views on the official Emirates FA Cup page on X, formerly known as Twitter.

"But many fans on social media were stunned by what they were watching, particularly as Semenyo is a former Sunderland player - having played at Newcastle's rivals on loan in 2020.

In fact, plenty called for those in the video to be banned from attending games at St James' Park in the future.

One user on X wrote: "Can we please ban every single one of these people from @NUFC Where are their getting tickets from when I get none in the ballot?

A second agreed and said: "@NUFC ban everyone who is in this video."

A third fumed: "That's the home end of a Newcastle match and they're standing there with City shirts for wanting a signature from a former Sunderland player."

A fourth demanded: "Lifelong ban from the stadium please #NUFC."

Pep Guardiola hit with ban

There is no word on whether the club will act on the requests from supporters but one man who will be serving a ban is City boss Pep Guardiola.

The Catalan received his sixth yellow card of the season for confronting fourth official Lewis Smith after a foul on Jeremy Doku.

Because of his yellow card tally, Guardiola is now required to serve a two-game touchline ban - which will see him miss the visit of West Ham United and the FA Cup quarter-final of the weekend of April 4 and 5.

The suspension only applies to league and FA Cup games, meaning the Carabao Cup final against Arsenal at Wembley on March 22 is not impacted.