Of the Red Machine of Arne Slot, this was a white flag performance. The pressing question is now how fast and to what extent they can get it out of your system.
This was a calamitic effort of the pre -League leaders. Slow, uncertain, tentative and, when everything was at stake, he did not respond. Liverpool slipped through this final as ghosts, without leaving anything behind that only regrets.
Everyone loses in sport at one time or another. But losing like this is something else. This was not a presentation, a failure, so vast and so condemnatory that the only consolation that must be assumed what will now feel like a long international rest is that its leadership at the top of the Premier League is huge.
12 points. That is all that matters now. That is the size of IT for Slot and its players. That is the difference between them and the arsenal in second place. That is the cushion they have, since they are now forwarded in the only trophy that really care and the way they will feel in the morning that they will cling to each of those points as miniature life rafts.
Arsenal then plays Fulham at home on April 1 so that leadership could be nine when Everton visits Anfield the next night. Psychologically, Liverpool would like that game to arrive before. This needs to be rinsed through the veins in the fastest and most possible way. Slot recognized him while talking on Sunday night.
But physically, all large -written signs in Wembley's green acres here pointed to a group of players who need to rest. Those of us who have seen a lot of Liverpool could recently see this result, if not this performance.
Liverpool looked like a shadow of themselves in its Newcastle 2-1 defeat in the EFL Cup final
The Reds of Arne Slot were bounced from their second competition of the cup in the space of a week
Liverpool looked a quadruple in early February, but now it must focus only on the race for the title
Liverpool had already begun to fight to organize performances of 90 minutes before meeting Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League last Tuesday and the effect of that 120-minute contest was clear at the time when this game began against a Newcastle team that came to them as Fighting Dogs launched from a cage. Newcastle seemed to be and would run forever. Liverpool seemed to need a lie.
The analysis after the Slot party was thorough and generous for the victors. He also left some unanswered questions. The Liverpool head said that Newcastle had not played them, but had played 'about' his team with long balls and passes. He added that any team that did that would be successful against his most frequently than they would not.
So is the plan when Liverpool plays? Is it really so simple? It plays a lot, boys. If so, David Moyes will pierce the Tarkowski-Beto movement daily during the next two and a half weeks.
It is more complicated and more nuanced than that, of course. However, in the National Stadium, the differences between Liverpool and Newcastle were all obvious. Newcastle was faster and more aggressive and more in tune with what Eddie Howe had asked. They won cup in the center of the field early and, in doing so, established a domain in that area that they never really released. Joelinton, the Brazilian titan of Newcastle, was magnificent in terms of configuration and then maintained that tone. At first, I was celebrating winning releases. It was that afternoon for the winners.
Liverpool didn't have anyone like that. Mo Salah was isolated to the degree to which he could well have been in his own release. The center of the Slot field, three from Dominik Szobszlai, Alexis Macallister and Ryan Gravenberch were children from Newcastle's men. They began badly and worsened, as if they decreased the experience of launching everything they had in the PSG last week and failing.
Newcastle's initial objective was a disaster. How did Macallister mark Dan Burn? The Argentine was giving approximately nine inches high.
Slot explained, in its usual and rational way, that Liverpool's zonal defense in Corners is prepared for his great players to deal with aerial threats when they seem closer to the goal. In other words, if Burn had advanced, then Virgil van Dijk or Ibrahima Konate or someone would have collected it. When he maintained his position so far from the goal, he simply not expected to score. But then he did, that was the end of that plan.
But the truth is that Newcastle would have eventually scored, the way this game was. His domain and mastery of his own ideas was such that it was inevitable. Who only scored twice on the piece was the only surprise about the result.
Eddie Howe Coached Slot to win Newcastle its first national trophy in 70 years
Mo Salah was not a factor in the game and has not yet scored a non -penalty goal in a final
The Newcastle midfield duo of Joelinton and Bruno Guimaraes neutralized his opposition
Slot was trained and his team was played. It is a destructive combination. Its substitutions could have worked. Curtis Jones was dynamic if it is wandering when two opportunities arrived. Federico Chiesa scored, if it is too late. But in terms of Darwin Núñez, it is tempting to ask if we have seen the last of him. He seemed shot in pieces, here, as if he were wearing his calamity of shots against the PSG around his neck. It was difficult not to pity it.
However, everything that remains for Liverpool is now the only thing that really matters, an advantage of 12 points and a certain perspective. The slot was anxious to stress it.
“The week began with a victory against Southampton and a 12 -point gap, so not everything is negative,” he said.
'Liverpool can lose football matches, you know'.
The Dutchman was also right. Above all. The Liverpool season still offers a great glory that will surely be yours. But now they have lost consecutive games under a slot for the first time. If two become three next month, then 12 can become nine and those who live to delight in these things will begin to speak.