Newcastle United reached a second League Cup final in three seasons as they overwhelmed Arsenal 2-0 at a feverish St James' Park on Wednesday to complete a crushing 4-0 aggregate win. Moments after Arsenal's Martin Odegaard wasted a chance to halve the deficit,

Newcastle is back in the English League Cup final for another chance to end its 70-year wait for a major domestic trophy. The Saudi-controlled northeast club beat Arsenal 2-0 in the second leg of the semifinals Wednesday to advance 4-0 on aggregate.

The EFL board will meet on Thursday amid renewed pressure from the entire National League to increase the number of promotion places from two to three. All 72 National League clubs, which represent the fifth and sixth tiers of English football,

"Rick Parry has often said that ‘the EFL should look down as well as up’, so we’d now like that to happen,” said the National League chair.

The EFL are sympathetic to the National League's new "three-up" campaign which wants to introduce an extra promotion place into League Two from next season