Dan Burn has revealed he knew his header against Liverpool was destined for the back of the next from the moment he made contact with it in Sunday’s Carabao Cup final.
The 32-year-old defender rose highest in the Liverpool box to power in a header at the end of the first period at Wembley and hand Newcastle United the initiative in the final. The Magpies went on to win 2-1 thanks to Alexander Isak’s strike as the club ended its 70-year spell without a major domestic honor.
It was an especially proud day for boyhood fan Burn, in the week he received a maiden England call-up, while Arne Slot said few players could have scored his distance header from near the edge of the box. “I think he's one of the few players that can score a goal from that distance with his head,” opined the Dutchman.
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There was criticism that 6 ft 7 in Burn was marked by the diminutive Alexis Mac Allister for the opening goal of the game. The Newcastle defender’s harsh post-match comments didn’t exactly reduce the attention on that particular battle between the two former team-mates.
“I knew that Alexis wasn’t looking at the ball, so I’d be able to get a good jump on him,” Burn told Sky Sports. “As soon as I headed it, I knew it was in. It was just one of them.”
As for that mismatched duel at the corner, Slot said: Credit to Newcastle, but I can explain. We play zonal, so we have five players zonally close to our goal. If the ball falls there, there's always one of the five stronger players that is going to attack that ball.
“We have three players that man mark and Macca is one of them and normally a player like Dan Burn runs to the zone because normally - I think he's an exception to that - I've never seen in my life a player from that far away heading a ball with so much force into the far corner.
“So that is part of our logic that they either have to go far away from our zone, which is 99 out of 100 times that will never lead to a goal, or they have to arrive in our zone and then it's an equal battle.”
