Eddie Howe lauded Newcastle’s Carabao Cup final win against Liverpool as a day the club “will never forget” after securing their first major domestic trophy in 70 years.
Dan Burn and Alexander Isak set Newcastle on their way to victory, with Federico Chiesa scoring a late consolation for Liverpool. There was pure elation in the black-and-white half of Wembley, packed with more than 32,000 Newcastle fans, at full time as they celebrated the end of a seven-decade long wait since winning the 1955 FA Cup. Victory earned a Conference League spot for next season.
Related: Newcastle sink Liverpool to savour taste of glory after decades of drought
“With such a long wait for a trophy, this will be a day that I’m sure everyone will never forget,” Howe said. “We will never forget it. I certainly won’t. I think there’s different ways to win trophies. Today we won it in the best way. We played a brilliant opponent, they’ve been the best team in the Premier League all season by quite a long way. And for me, we were the better team.
“I feel amazing, it is an incredible day. I was so, so pleased with our performance, it was not a lucky win, thoroughly deserved. I am drenched in alcohol from Joelinton and the rest of the squad, it’s a great moment, it is about embracing the success. We have to try and enjoy the moment and take it all in.”
Howe is the first English manager to win a major trophy in the country since Harry Redknapp led Portsmouth to FA Cup glory in 2008 and is hoping he and Newcastle can build on this. “Hopefully with one, it can become more,” the Newcastle manager said. “There’s no guarantee, though, but I just think it proves we can do it. I’ve never had any doubts about our ability to lift our game. But you don’t get many shots at this, you don’t get many shots at a cup final. Today we had to try and take our opportunity and that’s where the players delivered under pressure so well and so impressively. It also proved that we can mix our game against the very, very best. Now the challenge for us is to try and get there more often.”
Bruno Guimarães and Joelinton were key to victory, dominating in midfield as every Newcastle player outclassed their opponent. “We’ve got some iconic players who will go down as legends of the football club in the future. But they’ve still got to cement that legacy.”
Burn was unmarked from a corner after taking advantage of the defensive zonal marking just days after receiving an England callup. “I’ve had worse weeks,” Burns joked. “I don’t want to go to sleep because I feel like I am dreaming.”
Liverpool failed to match Newcastle’s energy and aggression across the pitch to make it a miserable end to the week in which they were also dumped out of the Champions League by Paris Saint-Germain after extra time and penalties on Tuesday.
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“Disappointing result, disappointing performance, so completely different than I felt after the Paris Saint-Germain game,” Liverpool’s head coach Arne Slot said. “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 10 times through the air against them, they win it probably nine times because they are a stronger team in the air than us. It led to the first goal and the second goal because the second goal was also a header that they won at the second post that fell for Isak.”
The opener put Liverpool on the back foot and they never recovered on the pitch. “I’ve never seen in my life a player from that far away heading a ball with so much force into the far corner,” Slot said. “That is part of logic that they either have to go far away from our zone, which is 99 out of 100 times that they will never lead to a goal, or they have to arrive in our zone and then it’s an equal battle. Credit to him, I think he’s one of the few players that can score a goal from that distance with his head.”
