Newcastle cruised into the quarter-finals of the EFL Cup with a crushing 6-0 victory over 10-man Preston on Tuesday night.

Aleksandar Mitrovic opened the scoring for Newcastle before Alan Browne saw red for the Lilywhites midway through the first half after a reckless challenge on Jack Colback.

Mohamed Diame then doubled the home side's lead just before half-time, while Matt Ritchie made it three via a second-half penalty and Mitrovic then added his second a few minutes later. Diame also netted again late on before substitute Ayoze Perez capped off a fine win.

Preston had been on a fine run of form in the Sky Bet Championship, and they'll be desperate to regroup as soon as possible before they face Newcastle again, with the league leaders visiting Deepdale on Saturday.

Both sides made a host of changes from their weekend games, but it was Newcastle who started by far the better in the early stages.

And it was one of their seven replacements in Mitrovic who headed them into the lead after 19 minutes. The Serbian was making his first start in six weeks but he showed plenty of sharpness in getting away from his marker before latching onto a Ritchie free-kick and heading past Anders Lindegaard.

Preston reacted well to falling behind, but just six minutes later they were down to 10 men thanks to Browne's foolishness, as he went in elbow first on Colback when the two were contesting an aerial ball.

Image: Mohamed Diame celebrates his first goal with Aleksandar Mitrovic

Newcastle took good advantage of the extra space on offer, and they doubled their lead after 38 minutes as a swift counter-attack saw the ball fall into the path of Diame, who fired it into the bottom corner from 25 yards.

The midfielder then contrived to miss a golden chance just four minutes later, as he somehow managed to miss the target when presented with the ball by Mitrovic in the Preston area.

Simon Grayson made a double change at half-time in an attempt to get Preston a foothold in the game, but it was all over eight minutes after the break as Bailey Wright brought down Ritchie in the box, before the winger stepped up himself to slam the ball into the roof of the net from the spot.

Mitrovic then added his second and Newcastle's fourth with a fine solo effort in the 56th minute.

Image: Mitrovic began the scoring spree for Newcastle

Newcastle continued to press for another with Mitrovic looking highly motivated in search of a hat-trick, but he missed a fine chance to add his third of the night in the 76th minute as he headed agonisingly wide from Jonjo Shelvey's cross.

Christian Atsu and substitute Vurnon Anita also had excellent opportunities late on, only to be denied by the woodwork and Lindegaard respectively.

There would be two more goals from the home side in the closing stages, however, as Diame made up for his earlier miss with another superb strike from outside the box after 87 minutes, this time charging forward with the ball before picking out the bottom right corner, and Perez completed the rout in the first minute of stoppage time, slotting home after the ball dropped to him from a corner.