Soldato
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Listening to the totally football show. Guy just said “Ant and Dec where on the TV more than Salah” 
Carabao Cup Final Liverpool v Newcastle ** Spoilers ** [16th March 2025 @16:30]
- Thread starter explicit4u
- Start date
Yeah I agree. There isn't a single player we have that Howe has not improved. Joelinton is the obvious one but Murphy and Kraft looked terrible for a long time too and Schar couldn’t even get in Bruces team.
Watched the game again. You see it slightly differently when you already know the outcome.
It was a nervy watch first time but second viewing you can see how much better Newcastle were and how much more they wanted it. Was comfortable really. Liverpool had very few clear chances and Newcastle should have scored 4 or 5
Joelinton forcefully won a header in the centre circle after 8 seconds then just commanded the game from that point in the middle of midfield and pretty much eliminated Szobozlei. He woke up Sunday morning and said, nope. This lot aren't beating me today. I went into the game wondering what Howes tactic with his fullback would be to contain Salah, turns out it didn't involve Livramento defending very much at all. More often it was Burn moving out to cover Salah and the tactic was to get at Quansah using Tino and Barnes overlapping which was forcing Gravenbach towards the space where you'd expect Salah to track back into, which of course he wasn't going to do so we ended up with 2 v 1 plenty times in the first half especially. Schar was pinging balls over the top of the FB any chance he got and it worked an absolute treat. On the right side Trippier had a first half you would expect from such an experienced player in a cup final and I feel that influence rubbed off on the entire team, some of those cushioned headers back to the keeper under pressure were superb. Without the ball we had a solid 5 man midfield line that was rarely broken.
We can't mention tactics though without talking about the Burn / Mac Allister mismatch. This is the worst plan I have seen since Amorin decided to match Eriksen and Casemerio up against Tonali, Bruno and Joelinton. At least Amorin realised his mistake and did something about it, although it did take him half an hour and the conceding of two goals.
I get the idea that Mac Allister is there to block his run and it worked to an extent that Burn wasn't really running but someone at Newcastle spotted it also and clearly told Burn to stay out of the 6 yard box and Trippier to keep the ball away from VVD's head and just see what happens. He won 6 of those challenges in the first half alone, granted you'd not normally expect anyone to score many headers from that position to be fair. 4 minutes into the second half he lines him up against Burn again. This time Burn wins the second ball on the deck after making a run that he failed to block which leads to a goal, albeit offside.
I'm going to say it again but I always felt that for Newcastle to be successful, to properly beat the best team in the country, to banish this Wembley hoodoo and end the drought then all of the players would have to perform at their absolute best and they all did. Newcastle's players worked so hard and gave their all, had they been defeated I don't think we could be too disappointed but they weren’t and we are not. Instead we have multiple generations of fans that have now seen their club win something.
Watched the game again. You see it slightly differently when you already know the outcome.
It was a nervy watch first time but second viewing you can see how much better Newcastle were and how much more they wanted it. Was comfortable really. Liverpool had very few clear chances and Newcastle should have scored 4 or 5
Joelinton forcefully won a header in the centre circle after 8 seconds then just commanded the game from that point in the middle of midfield and pretty much eliminated Szobozlei. He woke up Sunday morning and said, nope. This lot aren't beating me today. I went into the game wondering what Howes tactic with his fullback would be to contain Salah, turns out it didn't involve Livramento defending very much at all. More often it was Burn moving out to cover Salah and the tactic was to get at Quansah using Tino and Barnes overlapping which was forcing Gravenbach towards the space where you'd expect Salah to track back into, which of course he wasn't going to do so we ended up with 2 v 1 plenty times in the first half especially. Schar was pinging balls over the top of the FB any chance he got and it worked an absolute treat. On the right side Trippier had a first half you would expect from such an experienced player in a cup final and I feel that influence rubbed off on the entire team, some of those cushioned headers back to the keeper under pressure were superb. Without the ball we had a solid 5 man midfield line that was rarely broken.
We can't mention tactics though without talking about the Burn / Mac Allister mismatch. This is the worst plan I have seen since Amorin decided to match Eriksen and Casemerio up against Tonali, Bruno and Joelinton. At least Amorin realised his mistake and did something about it, although it did take him half an hour and the conceding of two goals.
I get the idea that Mac Allister is there to block his run and it worked to an extent that Burn wasn't really running but someone at Newcastle spotted it also and clearly told Burn to stay out of the 6 yard box and Trippier to keep the ball away from VVD's head and just see what happens. He won 6 of those challenges in the first half alone, granted you'd not normally expect anyone to score many headers from that position to be fair. 4 minutes into the second half he lines him up against Burn again. This time Burn wins the second ball on the deck after making a run that he failed to block which leads to a goal, albeit offside.
I'm going to say it again but I always felt that for Newcastle to be successful, to properly beat the best team in the country, to banish this Wembley hoodoo and end the drought then all of the players would have to perform at their absolute best and they all did. Newcastle's players worked so hard and gave their all, had they been defeated I don't think we could be too disappointed but they weren’t and we are not. Instead we have multiple generations of fans that have now seen their club win something.
Soldato
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I honestly don’t think we could have beaten a better team to smash our Wembley hoodoo and give us belief going into future games, Liverpool are by far the best team in the country and one of the best in Europe, beating them shows we can do it.
Plymouth beat them as well
Soldato
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- North Yorkshire
My team, Spurs could learn a lot from the mentality shown by Newcastle yesterday.
I'm normally of the opinion that Micah Richards talks bunkum but it looks like he might be onto something with Salah and Ramadan. When you look at Salah during Ramadan and his stats each year, he always has a huge drop off during Ramadan, so Micah might well be right about it being an explanation of why Salah has been so quiet of late
I mean, trying to perform at any level whilst fasted is hard. People train it but I have never heard of people doing it to prepare for Ramadan because 90% of the year you just want to fuel yourself effectively.
Isak's goal despite the defending is so satisfyingly good as far as a finish goes, class celebration too
Generally second half the year gets derailed for him
Been obvious for a while now, Afcon too
Generally second half the year gets derailed for him
I'm not so sure its quite as simple as that. Mane for example would often 'pick up the slack' when Salah had his inevitable drop of period post xmas. The wider issue is that he wasnt getting the ball due to the midfiled being utterly done in due to playing so many games- it's been an issue for a few weeks and it's up to slot to trust the other midfielders he has - it took Klopp a few seasons until the penny dropped in that regard