Newcastle: How much criticism does Rafael Benitez deserve in the wake of the Magpies' embarrassing FA Cup exit?

But when it comes to the Magpies’ seemingly never-ending tale of FA Cup humiliation, the chapters just keep on coming.

The identity of the man picking the below-strength team might change, and the attitude of the club’s hierarchy to the cup competitions might supposedly have been tempered in the last few years, but the outcome remains as unedifying as ever.

Newcastle’s annual FA Cup exit at the hands of supposedly inferior opposition has become an integral part of the Tyneside calendar. Christmas, New Year, a cup exit before the end of January. It is now 11 seasons since the Magpies reached the FA Cup fifth round, and almost 62 years since they lifted their last major trophy. The misery endures.

Rafael Benitez will plead mitigating circumstances for Saturday’s latest capitulation, and if Newcastle successfully make it back to the Premier League this season, their FA Cup exit will be treated as an irrelevance. Yet as Oxford’s fans celebrated wildly at the final whistle at the weekend, the sight of the Magpies’ below-strength team shuffling off the pitch jarred. The magic of the FA Cup was alive and well at the Kassam Stadium – as long as you didn’t have anything to do with the team playing in white.

Did it really have to be that way? Did Benitez really have to make nine changes, turning to the likes of Curtis Good, who hadn’t kicked a ball in a Newcastle senior team for more than three years, and Dan Barlaser, who only turned 20 a fortnight ago?

The Spaniard justified his team selection by flagging up the importance of holding on to a position in the Championship’s top two, but Newcastle didn’t play last week, and while they are hosting QPR at Gallowgate on Wednesday, they don’t have a midweek game the following week either. He will argue otherwise, but Benitez acted like a manager who was desperate to get out of the cup as quickly as possible.

That he has hardly received any criticism as a result underlines his standing in the eyes of Newcastle’s supporters. Had this been Pardew or Steve McClaren making nine changes for a cup tie, the reaction would have been vitriolic. As it was, the 1,800-or-so travelling fans merely shuffled out of their seats when Oxford’s third goal went in and headed off to retrieve their cars from the giant car park behind one of the goals. At a ground with one end remaining unbuilt, they were willing to tolerate their own side going missing too.

“We had to make the changes,” maintained Benitez. “It is very clear. I said before the game that if we were going to go through, it had to be with the squad, and if we couldn’t do that, then we couldn’t. We could have been ahead in the first half, but we didn’t do it and then we paid for the first mistake in the second half and that was it.

“In the Championship, you play so many games in a few days without too much time. I said that if we go through, we will do it with the squad. If we cannot, we cannot. Obviously, I feel sorry for the fans, and also for us because we wanted to go through.”

In fairness to Benitez, he was hardly alone in sending out a below-strength team this weekend. Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp and Brighton manager Chris Hughton also did it, and came unstuck. Tottenham’s Mauricio Pochettino just about survived, but needed a remarkable fightback against Wycombe to avoid a huge embarrassment.

What can be done to avoid such scenarios? Should the FA Cup winners be given a Champions League spot? That wouldn’t have affected Benitez’s thinking on Saturday. Should teams be fined for playing a below-strength line-up? Or is that unfair on squad players who need a chance to show what they can do? There are no easy answers, and even Oxford boss Michael Appleton was quick to defend Benitez’s team selection.

“I understand it,” said Appleton. “As a manager, there’s no doubt that you want to win every single game. I’ll back any manager in terms of that, and the reality is that he sent a team out there expecting to beat Oxford United.

“I will do exactly the same thing on Tuesday (in the Checkatrade Trophy), knowing I’ve got a group of players, even if there are changes, that can beat Bradford City. You put out a side you think can beat the side in front of you.”

Perhaps, now the dust settled, that is the most damning aspect of Newcastle’s display. We keep hearing that the Magpies have the deepest squad in the Football League, yet their fringe players were soundly beaten by a team lying in mid-table in League One.  If Benitez was hoping to make a subtle point in the final throes of the transfer window, he succeeded. Whether Mike Ashley is in the mood to listen, however, remains a different story.

Benitez fielded three centre-halves at the weekend – Grant Hanley, Massadio Haidara and Good – and none look remotely capable of covering for Jamaal Lascelles or Ciaran Clark if either of Newcastle’s first-choice central defenders get injured.

Barlaser is hardly a realistic central-midfield option if anything happens to Jonjo Shelvey, while Yasin Ben El-Mhannii, while clearly possessing potential, looks exactly what he is – an untried 21-year-old, better known for his YouTube trickery.

Then, there is Aleksandar Mitrovic, a £13m striker who was more interested in trying to rile a League One centre-half than do the job he is paid for, namely scoring goals. Twice in the first half, Mitrovic found himself in space in the penalty area; twice he rolled weak shots much too close to Oxford goalkeeper Simon Eastwood.

His second-half penalty miss was indicative of his display, a lazy side-footed effort that enabled Eastwood to emerge as Oxford’s hero. Watching Mitrovic amble around the field, it was easy to see why Daryl Murphy has suddenly become such an important player.

Mitrovic’s spot-kick failure came 20 minutes after Newcastle had conceded the lead to Kane Hemmings’ close-range finish, and was the game’s decisive moment.

Oxford scored again in the 80th minute, with Curtis Nelson out-jumping Isaac Hayden to head home, and completed their victory with three minutes left when substitute Toni Martinez glanced home another header.

They can look forward to tonight’s fifth-round draw; Newcastle have long forgotten what that experience feels like.