Newcastle United have won the League Cup for the first time in their history with a 2-1 win over Liverpool in this season’s final. The victory not only sealed a new chapter in Newcastle’s history but also made manager Eddie Howe the first home-grown manager to win a major English cup (the FA Cup or the League) since 2008.
According to the statistics, no English manager has topped the domestic cup since Harry Redknapp led Portsmouth to the FA Cup in 2008. Howe’s achievement, however, goes back to the moment when Steve McClaren won the League Cup with Middlesbrough in 2004, and he created his moment of glory.
After the game, Eddie Howe said: “At the moment, I just want to soak in the joy of this. Usually, I always think about the next game, but this time, I’m going to stop working and enjoy the glory. In today’s game, both sides played straight and hard, but our team played very well. There wasn’t a lot of pomp and circumstance but we showed an efficient side in both areas.”
He continued to share: “We have a deep affection for the history of the team and have always been eager to add glory to the club. We want to score goals, we want to play and we want to win. Now, we are making new history and I think the performance of the team today was perfect. Over the last two weeks, we have been working a lot on set pieces for this match. If someone had seen us in training, they might have thought it was difficult for us to win, but Dan Byrne’s goal was a surprise and he was a giant today.
“I’m still very excited,” Howe enthused. “It’s different from what I normally do. We know what this game means to the fans and we want to make them proud of us and win this trophy. I am very happy with the result and the performance of the team. We deserved the win today. When Liverpool scored, the game became more difficult and I even started thinking about extra time. But we always seem to make a habit of putting ourselves in situations and this game is never easy.”
