By Simon Wilkes
Liverpool manager Arne Slot admitted Newcastle United ‘deserved to win’ Sunday’s Carabao Cup at Wembley, saying the Magpies were more dominant physically and in the air.
Eddie Howe’s Magpies won 68 per cent of the aerial battles in Sunday’s showpiece, with towering defender Dan Burn opening the scoring with a header from a corner just before the half-time break.
Reported summer transfer target Alexander Isak showed Slot his scoring prowess to make it 2-0 to Newcastle on 52 minutes.
And although Federico Chiesa netted for the Reds to set up a nervy finale, Howe’s men hung on to secure some silverware for the first time in 70 years.
Tough week for Liverpool
The result brought the curtain down on a tough week for Liverpool, who exited the Champions League in midweek following a penalty shootout defeat to Paris Saint-Germain.
Second-placed Arsenal beat Chelsea 1-0 to reduce Liverpool’s lead in the Premier League to 12 points – but Slot was keen to find the positives for the position his team are in.
“It was a tough week, but it was also a week where we lead by 12 points [in the Premier League table], so it wasn’t all negative, but the last two [games] were definitely not the way we wanted it to be,” the Dutchman told the press after the final.
“But it’s not for the first time in their [Liverpool’s] history – or in the last two seasons – they’ve lost two games in a row. This is part of playing football.
“If you go far in tournaments that the opposition in your face gets stronger and stronger and then even Liverpool can lose football games. That’s what can happen.”
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No intensity
Analysing Liverpool’s performance in the final, where Slot’s men were overwhelmed physically at times, the Reds manager said: “This game had only to do with playing duels and there was no intensity in terms of running in this game at all, so you cannot even judge it if we were tired, physically, because we could not press them.
“You can judge a team if they are tired if they press, but there was nothing to press because they played over our press.
“The game was slow, not intense, so it’s difficult to judge for me if we were physically ready.
“Mentally, it’s always a difficult one. If you look at the result and the performance you might feel that it maybe did something to us, but I prefer to look at how the game went and this game went exactly the way they wanted it to be – a fight with a lot of duels and a lot of duels through the air.
“If we played a game of football through the air against them 10 times, they win it probably nine times because they are a stronger team through the air than us, which led to the first goal and the second goal. They are stronger in that part of football than us and that’s why they beat us.”
Deserved victory
Slot did admit, however, that Newcastle deserved to lift the trophy in front of their adoring fans, who soaked up the celebrations having waited so long for some serious silverware.
“I agree if you say that they deserved to win because the game went in the way they wanted it to go,” he said.
“So yes, they deserve to win. But it wasn’t like we were only running after them. We had to defend a lot of long balls, second balls and that’s their strength.”
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