RAFAEL BENITEZ admitted his Newcastle United side’s failure to reach the EFL Cup semi-finals was a “missed opportunity” after a penalty shoot-out defeat to Hull City ended their interest in the competition.

The Magpies looked to be heading for only their second ever appearance in the last four of the League Cup when Mo Diame broke the deadlock at the KCOM Stadium in the first half of extra-time, but their advantage disappeared within a minute as Robert Snodgrass claimed an equaliser.

Despite playing against ten men for the whole of extra-time, they were unable to reclaim their lead, and they crashed to a miserable exit as they were beaten 3-1 on penalties.

Jonjo Shelvey, Dwight Gayle and Yoan Gouffran all missed from 12 yards – the latter’s effort was especially tame – and with Matz Sels failing to save a single spot-kick, Hull progressed to the last four along with Liverpool, who beat Leeds.

“Is it a missed opportunity? Yes, I think so,” said Benitez. “We are disappointed because we played so well. We are out of the competition, but I think we deserved to qualify.

“The way that we played, I think we deserved to score goals in the first half and deserved to score goals in extra-time. But when we scored the goal, we didn’t manage the situation properly.

“That is something you can get with experience, and hopefully a match like this will give us that experience and in the future we will do a bit better when we have this kind of advantage. We created so many chances.”

Benitez admitted his players had not practised spot-kicks during the week, but refused to be too critical of their efforts even though Christian Atsu was the only visiting player to score during the shoot-out.

Instead, the Spaniard was keen to praise the quality of his side’s all-round performance, particularly during the opening 45 minutes when they were dominant throughout.

“We can learn a lot for the future from a game like this,” he said. “We played against a Premier League team, away from home, and the team was playing so well. I was pleased (at the end of normal time), but I was saying, ‘We have done nothing – we have to score and we have to win’.

“With one less player for them, we had so much control (in extra-time) that it was just a matter of time before we scored. But once we did that, we made a mistake and we allowed them to score. There were a lot of things we can learn, but also a lot of positives because, for me, the team did quite well.”

Dieumerci Mbokani’s dismissal for a head-butt on Jamaal Lascelles gave Newcastle a numerical advantage, and they went ahead on the scoresheet when Diame slid in from close range.

However, Sels could only parry a shot from Markus Henriksen, enabling Snodgrass to score, and the Belgian goalkeeper should also have done better with Tom Huddlestone’s spot-kick, which he palmed into the corner of the net.

Nevertheless, Benitez refused to criticise the shot-stopper, who was handed a starting spot ahead of Karl Darlow despite his team-mate’s recent good performances in the league.

“I don’t want to talk about the goalkeeper,” he said. “The team as a team made mistakes. That is what allowed them to score. It is not about the keeper – it was the midfielders, the defenders, everyone. We allowed them to get to a position where they should not have been.”

Newcastle must now bounce back when they travel to Nottingham Forest in the league on Friday, having seen their lead at the top of the table cut to two points when they lost to Blackburn last weekend.

“When you are winning so many games, every time you have a defeat or a bad result, people will talk and ask questions,” said Benitez. “Now, we will see what will happen. But it was a long season before this week, and it will be a long season after this week.

“We still have to carry on working hard and doing things in the same way. If you see the game today, what can you say? We had five or six chances in the first half where we could have scored, and we played really well against a Premier League team.”