Magpies crash out

Yet when a man of the stature of Bobby Robson readily lavishes such praise on a player, it is difficult to disagree.

That is particularly so when the player in question is Dennis Bergkamp.

Robson's Newcastle might have known that Dennis the Menace would sabotage their plans again.

Only three weeks earlier, in the first part of this trilogy at St. James' Park, the Holland striker scored a goal of bewildering brilliance and set up another for Sol Campbell, to effectively shatter the Magpies' Premiership title ambitions.

On Saturday, he ensured their quest for silverware is as good as over for another season by scoring once more and this time creating two goals for double-chasing Arsenal.

The home fans at Highbury were in ferment as Bergkamp conducted a Dutch master-class now all too familiar to Newcastle.

You were left with the feeling that this high noon FA Cup quarter-final replay might never have taken place had Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger selected Bergkamp for the original tie on Tyneside a fortnight earlier, when he was reduced to the role of last-half-hour substitute in a 1-1 draw.

This time, Bergkamp was very much on from the start, which was more than could be said of the sleepy Magpies, who were anything but the early birds for this mid-day kick-off.

It is hard to comprehend that, not so long ago, Wenger was close to off-loading Bergkamp after he had, for a time, admittedly gone off the boil.

Putting the heat on Newcastle, however, seemingly comes naturally. This game was only two minutes old when Bergkamp turned centre-back Andy O'Brien and nonchanantly released the ball to Robert Pires out on the left.

The Frenchman was unmarked and made most of the time and space to sweep a right-footed finish beyond goalkeeper Shay Given and into the far corner of the net.

Four minutes later, Bergkamp curled a right-footed effort of his own against the bar as Arsenal effortlessly cut the off-guard Newcastle defence asunder with rapier-like thrusts.

And in the ninth minute, Pires returned the compliment to Bergkamp with a low ball in from the left which the Dutchman slid home past the scandalously-exposed Given from around six yards.

The Newcastle fans stood in stunned silence, but Robson - though no doubt far from enamoured with his side's defending - admitted he could only look on in admiration.

"Bergkamp doesn't pull rabbits out of hats, but he does quite well with a ball,'' quipped Robson.

"I think he's been a genius for a number of years. I remember when I first first went to Holland in 1990 and he was playing for Ajax, I thought, 'What a player.' He's been a fabulous player for a long time.

"On the day, without any recriminations about my team, Arsenal were much the better side and they deserved to win.

"They had better movement and far nore intelligence than we had. We're not there yet - they are where we want to be as a team.

"We had a passage of play in the first half that gave us hope. I said to the players at half-time, 'Look, we have to believe we can still win this game. If none of you think that, there's no point in going back out - let's get the early train home and give them the game.'

"Some of our fans got up at four o'clock to get to this game - we woke up at quarter past twelve.

"We got off to a wretched start - we were two down before we knew where we were.''

Yet, as Robson said, Newcastle almost looked capable of retrieving the game as they enjoyed the lion's share of possession for the remainder of the first half and came desperately close to scoring on three occasions.

Striker Carl Cort, still well short of fitness and sharpness after ten months out through injury, should have converted a chance on the end of a Nolberto Solano free-kick.

But if Cort's failure to finish from close range wasn't bad enough, O'Brien missed an even better opportunity immediately afterwards.

Cort had only succeeded in knocking the ball across goal, and when Solano centred again, O'Brien - who scored in Newcastle's memorable 3-1 Premiership win here last December - nodded wide of a gaping goal.

Skipper Alan Shearer was disappointed with the result of a cheeky chip which fell just wide of Richard Wright's right-hand post.

But the Arsenal keeper was forced into a smart save at the foot of the same upright just after the half-hour mark when the otherwise anonymous Laurent Robert curled a free-kick around the defensive wall.

By then, Arsenal had lost the hugely influential Robert Pires, who was stretchered away after suffering medial knee ligament damage as he rode a byline challenge by Nikos Dabizas.

But for all Kieron Dyer's energy and verve in his first start for nine weeks - Robson labelled the stress fracture victim's display "phenomenal'' - Newcastle couldn't crack the Gunners' rearguard.

Given kept United in contention with a fine one-handed save from Freddie Ljungberg on the stroke of half-time.

But he was powerless five minutes after the restart when Arsenal struck a decisive blow.

Robert brought down over-lapping right-back Oleg Luzhny and when Bergkamp swung in the free-kick, it was just as it had been early this month on Tyneside when Campbell then beat Dabizas to head home.

Minutes later, Bergkamp hit the angle of the post and bar with an audacious 20-yard chip, and then pushed a shot wide after breaking clear of a static defence.

Cort did bring a great one-handed save from Wright, but by then the spoils from the third meeting between the sides in as many weeks were only going one way, and the prospect of a Tyne-Tees semi-final had disappeared.

The question now is, can Middlesbrough defy Dennis and Co. and win again at Old Trafford a fortnight on Sunday?

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