It wasn’t to be at Wembley, as Liverpool fell to a Newcastle team who quite simply refused to release the bit from between their teeth. A heartbreaking result, but one that flags some major concerns to FSG.
Liverpool 1-2 Newcastle
Carabao Cup Final | Wembley
March 16, 2025
Goals: Chiesa 90+4; Burn 45′, Isak 52′
1. Salah silence speaks volumes
Many, many times we have watched games ebb by wherein Mo Salah appears all but absent.
It’s frustrating and difficult to palate…usually until the exact moment he bursts into life and bends a fixture to his will at the click of two fingers.
But not this time. As Anfield South rippled and reverberated, waiting for the moment of Salah’s inevitable ascending, it did not arrive.
Wait turned to hope, and hope to desperation. Salah has played an awful lot of football this season and made an entire mockery of the rest of top flight, but Liverpool needed their talisman and appeared dumbfounded when he could not produce the goods.
Time and time again cameras panned to Salah, who cut a lost and forlorn figure on the touchline. Liverpool’s Egyptian maestro could be seen repeatedly glancing up at the Wembley scoreboard to account for how much time he had left.
Time is a very salient and pressing theme with Salah now. Is this the last time he plays in a final for Liverpool? Is it time that this team cannot purely hold reliance on his unquantifiable brilliance?
It’s easy to be hyperbolic when collecting a runners-up medal.
There isn’t a shred of doubt right now that Salah will not burn white-hot and summon his every fibre to continue the fight to push Liverpool to the Premier League title. But this…this was a painful absence.
2. Centre-forward is an issue
The concept of an out-and-out striker has been a puzzling one at Liverpool during the best part of the last 10 years, given the unique magnificence that was Roberto Firmino and the pioneering yet enigmatic way he fitted into a system which allowed both Salah and Sadio Mane to dazzle.
Now, Liverpool march to a slightly different beat and, while much of the forward mechanisms from the Jurgen Klopp era can still be seen, it is becoming more and more achingly apparent that Arne Slot needs – and clearly wants – a central, prolific goal-getter.
Diogo Jota, for all his undoubted skill in finishing inside and around the box, blows hot and cold in the Slot system and forever appears fearful of the next imminent injury.
It came as no surprise to see the Portugal international hooked, though the arrival of Darwin Nunez only served to feel like a Hail Mary.
How typical it was that the player Liverpool decided to rule out when signing Nunez – Alexander Isak – would bury a sublime finish on the biggest stage.
Slot has very specific football plans, and they require a bonafide striker with a ruthless finishing ability. Something has to give.
3. Arne Slot will play Russian roulette
If there was one thing we learned in the desperate, dying stages, it’s that Liverpool’s manager will go all guns blazing with full intention of dying by the sword that is all-out attack.
As Newcastle rallied and tightened, Slot acknowledged that it was a smash-glass-in-emergency situation.
Liverpool ended the match with Nunez, Federico Chiesa, Cody Gakpo and Salah on the pitch, with the attack-minded Harvey Elliott just behind and Virgil van Dijk up front.
Although perhaps slapdash, the intent was clear – the chamber would be spun, the trigger pulled and roulette would be played.
The intent from the manager had both the prospect of flooding in goals, yet also an increased likelihood of capitulation and possible defeat by cricket score margins.
Seeing Chiesa slot into the bottom corner somewhat vindicated the pedal-to-the-metal fury, but it ultimately would not be enough.
4. Waning energy levels are a reinforcement cry
While it’s plain to see that Slot’s Liverpool are more reserved with their energy levels over the course of a campaign, compared to the previous Klopp regime, there is no getting away from the fact that an all-out assault for every major honour during the run of a season takes a tremendous amount of output.
After being put through the wringer by PSG just five days ago, Liverpool struggled to muster the blitzkrieg attack that was required at Wembley.
Passages of play were elite, but Liverpool over 100 minutes were not.
It’s a sign to the hierarchy, the cheque-writers in the Fenway setup, that work needs to be conducted this summer.
Slot and his medical team have worked wonders when it comes to keeping the senior squad fit – a trait he became famed for at Feyenoord – but even when fully stocked this Liverpool side still need those extra, renewed sprinkles of magic.
5. Quansah is a Slot player
It’s hard to find positives when you’ve just watch your team lose a final and fall at the last hurdle, but praise must be allocated here to Jarell Quansah, who did what was required of him when standing in for one of Liverpool’s most unique personnel.
What does it mean to be an Slot player? The list is pretty extensive; composure on the ball, successful in the duels, progressive with pass selection. On and on.
But one of the primary components of being a Slot player is a willingness to learn and demand the very best of your abilities.
Quansah stepped up to the plate in a match he probably never envisaged featuring in, let alone at full-back.
It has been several months now since that fateful late summer afternoon at Portman Road, when the youngster was unceremoniously hooked by Slot at the interval after failing to live up to the new manager’s basic demands.
Quansah lost a multitude of duels that day and Slot didn’t flinch in getting him straight inside for an early shower.
The Dutchman has made it crystal clear that there cannot be any weak links in this Liverpool machine, else performance be collectively compromised.
Now, with silverware at stake, Quansah was able to ease into unfamiliar territory and put in a solid shift, helping the Reds play out from the back while simultaneously keeping intensity high on the press.
The 22-year-old wasn’t collecting a winner’s medal, but he has very much regained the trust and belief of his manager.
