Eddie Howe revealed he worked on set-pieces for two weeks before the Carabao Cup final after exposing a weakness in Liverpool’s approach.
The Newcastle United manager, who masterminded an end to the club’s barren 70 years without a major domestic honor, identified ahead of the game that it could be decided by a set-piece. It was a prediction that proved correct as Dan Burn connected from distance with Kieran Trippier’s corner to hand Newcastle an early advantage at Wembley.
The Magpies grabbed a second after the break to ensure they got their hands on the EFL Cup for the first time in their history, although Federico Chiesa’s injury-time strike did cause a few late nerves. Newcastle held on though, ensuring Howe became the first Englishman since Harry Redknapp in 2008 to win a major domestic trophy.
It was justly deserved, especially for his forensic pre-match preparations. “We’ve been working on those corners tirelessly for two weeks and had mixed success if I’m honest,” the former Bournemouth boss revealed. “But he’s delivered and from long range - what a header. It was so fitting it was him that scored that goal, a long wait for a goal at Wembley. Brilliant moment.
“The actual work for the game started after West Ham [on Monday]; we didn’t do any work before West Ham but we did work on certain things like set-plays but not team shape,” he added. “We all sat down before the final and said ‘a set-piece can win us the game - let’s see what we can do and go into the details of what could win it for us’.
“I’m not trying to be clever or give us a pat on the back, it’s up to the players to deliver. Kieran’s ball and Dan’s header; Dan has so much to do from that position.”
But from a Liverpool perspective, there was criticism that the diminutive Alexis Mac Allister ended up marking 6 ft 7 in Burn, especially as earlier in the first half the same combination was nearly exposed from a Newcastle corner.
Explaining the set-up for corners, 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. So credit to him, I think he's one of the few players that can score a goal from that distance with his head.”
