James Milner and Habib Beye snubbed the Toon - and that made it all the more pleasing.
Have I become a bitter, twisted old bastard? YOU BET I HAVE!
Seeing the Irish dwarf 'gutted' last night was the biggest laugh since a Toon fan threw his shitty underkegs at Derek Llambias (at Darlo) in the summer.
Martin O'Neill: "We should have won. We did actually win the game. We should have got through. We should have had the game out of sight before they scored and it was unfortunate.
"They exerted some pressure at 2-0, which you would be expecting, but I thought we had a number of chances to go from 2-0 to 3-0 and that would have sealed the tie.
"It would have been great experience again, particularly for the younger players, and last season, despite the way it ended for us in the UEFA Cup, I thought we had some splendid nights at Villa Park.
"I will miss those but we have to get on with it now and we will come again."