Carabao Cup Final Preview: Liverpool vs Newcastle
Liverpool will look to bounce back from their Champions League exit by winning a first English trophy for Arne Slot.
This newsletter is normally interested in trying to analyse what has happened rather than trying to predict what might. You have to make an exception for a cup final.
The showdown between Liverpool and Newcastle is fascinating as they’ve somehow managed to largely avoid each other in cups for half a century. When the Reds played Chelsea in their previous three domestic finals, the memory banks overflowed with thoughts of encounters in knockout competitions of the past.
Yet since Bill Shankly directed operations with hand gestures perhaps only he understood on the Wembley bench 51 years ago, the Liverbird and Magpie have only fought four times in knockout football. It is surprising how rarely their paths have crossed, no matter that Newcastle are enduring a trophy drought lengthier than even Everton.
It’s over two decades since the previous cup tie between the clubs. If head-to-head record in one-off occasions ever counts for anything, that won’t be the case here.
A more recent aspect of Liverpool’s record against Newcastle to hearten Kopites is that the Reds are unbeaten in the previous 17 league meetings. It took having Steve McClaren in the dugout for the Magpies to last get one over Liverpool, and who can hope to match up to his managerial nous?
The game in question occurred only seven weeks after Jürgen Klopp’s first match in charge of the Reds, at a time when his new side were still stumbling from high to low on a weekly basis. One assumes the German was impressed by the performance that day of the Magpies’ goal scorer, Gini Wijnaldum.
Despite Liverpool’s recent dominance of the match up, Arne Slot will not take Newcastle lightly. As a man aware of underlying statistics - which he mentioned in reference to PSG recently - he will know that his side’s 3-3 draw in the north-east was a rare match in which they did not ‘win’ the expected goals.
While they were bettered by just 0.2 xG in that game, the Reds of 2024/25 have been an average of 1.3 per match better than their opponents. Outdoing Liverpool by even the barest of all margins is a rarity. We don’t need to look back far for an example of a sizeable statistical victory for Newcastle in this fixture though.
If your memory needs jogging, this picture should provide all the help you need.
Newcastle’s advantage on the underlying numbers in August 2023 was in part crafted thanks to Virgil van Dijk receiving the joint-sixth earliest red card a Liverpool player has earned in a Premier League match; more on that shortly.
If you acknowledge the Reds started the aforementioned draw in December with a back five which included Joe Gomez, CaoimhÃn Kelleher and Jarell Quansah, it becomes apparent that it’s a long time since Newcastle dominated a full-strength, 11-man Liverpool side. FBRef goes back eight seasons, which isn’t long enough to find an example.
Not that Eddie Howe’s men necessarily need to outshoot the Reds or have better quality chances on Sunday to win the Carabao Cup, of course. Much will rest on Alexander Isak, as he has 10 league goals outside St James’ Park this season when Harvey Barnes (four) is the only other Newcastle player with more than two.
The suspended Anthony Gordon will be a huge miss, though Barnes assisted the Magpies’ winner at West Ham on Monday when deputising in his left-wing position. Whether he can match the former Evertonian for pressing, when Gordon has been Newcastle’s top man for possession-adjusted pressures per 90 minutes, is another matter.
Howe’s greater concern will be whether a defence deprived of Sven Botman and Lewis Hall can hold Liverpool at bay. The Reds have only failed to score four times this season; can your boys emulate Plymouth Argyle, Eddie?
The Pilgrims benefitted from not having to face Ballon d’Or favourite and walking goal contribution Mohamed Salah. There is little to discredit in the career of the third top scorer in the history of Liverpool FC. How could there be?
If one were to be ultra critical, he hasn’t delivered much at Wembley. Salah’s only goal there occurred in a 4-1 Premier League defeat to Tottenham in the thankfully brief window between his arrival and van Dijk signing for the club later that season. The Egyptian’s most recent appearance there was curtailed by injury, with the same reason explaining why he missed the Carabao Cup final last season.
It’s hard to know which is stranger; that Salah has gone 26 shots without scoring at Wembley, or that injuries have hampered his participation there when he has barely missed a game in eight years with the Reds.
What is certain this week is that he will make just his 11th League Cup appearance for the club. That’s the same total as Cody Gakpo and one fewer than Darwin Núñez, despite their Liverpool careers being far shorter. The Dutch forward is the top scorer in the competition since first appearing in it last season, with the Reds’ number nine also among the top goal contributors in that period.
Neither man will have been pleased with their performance against PSG on Tuesday. They may need to deliver far more here, almost certainly from the bench as was the case last time out.
If the match proves to be close, the referee may have an impact. It is usually pointless dwelling upon the identity of the man in charge - or, as is so often the case, the borough of Greater Manchester from which he hails - but Sunday’s ref John Brooks has taken a Newcastle versus Liverpool match before:
Oh. Thankfully, it’s not like referees bear grudges against people who are unfortunately abusive towards them in the heat of the moment, is it?
They’re much too professional, far too level-headed to get involved in any kind of stupid incidents by way of a response to being upset by players or managers, aren’t they?
Oh. The interesting thing to watch for with Brooks is how he referees the game. Since he rose to the Premier League in 2021/22, no official with a reasonable sample of top flight matches has averaged more cards per game. Will the likes of Joelinton get away with countless fouls before being booked, as so often happens, or will Brooks clampdown early? Liverpool will hope for the latter while fearing the former.
Ignoring Brooks’ potential influence, there’s no question that Liverpool are favourites to win the match. The bookmakers believe so, as does a prediction made using expected goal data from this season (which is the starting point for bookies in any case). A model can’t account for injured players or having to play extra time earlier in the week unlike odds-setters, but their conclusions are broadly the same regardless.
The xG predictions are calculated using a team’s relative strength at home or away or in total as appropriate for the first three rows in this chart. If it’s surprising that the numbers suggest Liverpool would have a better chance at St James’ Park rather than Anfield, a) the data can’t account for the power of a crowd, and b) the Reds have had easier fixtures on the road which helps them be statistically more dominant than their Premier League peers.
Let’s look at the match stats forecast, focussing purely on the neutral (total) numbers rather than with either side having home field advantage.
Newcastle’s underlying numbers for the bottom two metrics make for a fascinating case study, as they are within a percentage point or two of league average both in attack and defence. These numbers are what should happen if Liverpool were to take on beige in a game of football.
Again, injuries will play a part in disrupting any model-made predictions. Yes, Slot may ask Curtis Jones to deputise for the absent Trent Alexander-Arnold, but the Magpies will be without Botman, Gordon and Hall. The latter is one of the most important players in the Premier League, at least based on how Newcastle’s xG difference alters depending on whether he is on the field or not.
Even if Eddie Howe could deploy his full strength side or play a 4-4-2 featuring a de-aged Alan Shearer, the Reds would still be favourites. And should the final go to penalties, their squad has a much better record from the spot than they displayed during their Champions League exit on Tuesday.
It’s up to Liverpool to win the cup anyway, anyhow on Sunday afternoon. Whatever it takes, get that trophy home. It will be a shock outcome if they do not.
Really pleased with this preview. As I said on the Distance Covered podcast this week, my prediction is 2-0 Liverpool.
But the Reds win very few cup finals in 90 minutes... will this be an exception?
Got to be honest, I have really bad vibes about this - not just after the effects of Wednesday, but also the thug they have in midfield. I’m not convinced this ref will give us any protection. Although he will, of course, give them every fake foul going. I’d love a repeat of ‘74, but as I say, very apprehensive.