Newcastle United in rapture as they finally, finally get their day to celebrate over dismal Liverpool

Twenty five thousand, five hundred and seventeen days after Newcastle United last had Their Day in the cup, they finally had another.

This is, they hope, just the beginning. The League Cup was the first trophy won by Jose Mourinho at Chelsea and by Pep Guardiola at Manchester City. Eddie Howe will not want to stop here, either.

But any more silverware that does come their way will not come with the same feeling of catharsis and long pent-up joy that greets this one. Try telling them it’s just the League Cup. They won’t care. It’s a trophy. That’s enough.

Very few in the Wembley crowd would remember the last time Newcastle laid their hands on a proper domestic cup. There will be plenty of Geordies in London tonight whose plans were either to get a miserable train home, or wait until morning, soaked in beer and tears. No hotel required; 70 years’ worth of partying is all going to come out at once.

Making it even sweeter for those celebrating fans in black and white is the knowledge that their side thoroughly deserved their victory on the day. They were the better side from the first minute to the last.

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It was scarcely believable just how wretched Liverpool were. They did not manage so much as a shot on goal until the last kick of the first half – a badly shanked Diogo Jota effort that summed up their entire performance.

Newcastle, on the other hand, stuck to their plan admirably. They may have expected Liverpool not to be so dismally awful, but looking to play to their considerable strengths on the counter attack and from set pieces proved to be a fitting strategy.

Liverpool had been given more than ample warning about Dan Burn’s threat from dead balls before the goal. The gigantic defender had won half the set play deliveries that went into the Liverpool box, entirely through the simple expedient of just hanging back away from the Reds’ own more towering players.

One of those knockdowns or headers on goal was going to pay off eventually, and so it proved bang on 45 minutes as England’s newest call-up rose and put an unstoppable header past Caoimhin Kelleher.

Newcastle could consider themselves unfortunate that a second set piece goal, bundled home by Alexander Isak, was ruled out for an offside against Bruno Guimaraes, who was adjudged to have blocked Kelleher’s view of a shot in the build-up.

But the pundits had barely finished picking the bones out of that decision before Isak scored a legitimate effort, slashing home Jacob Murphy’s knockdown for 2-0.

It could have been more. It should have been more. Newcastle simply did not relent. Liverpool just could not get a handle on the game, not helped by their usual difference-maker Mohamed Salah completely hiding his way through yet another cup final.

Even after Federico Chiesa found the net in injury time, it still would have taken something Gerrardesque to take this away from Newcastle. It did not come.

Even after a nightmare week of Champions League elimination and cup final defeat, Premier League champions elect Liverpool will know they have their own celebrations ahead of them, just like the many they have enjoyed before in their illustrious history.

For Newcastle, massive club though they are, this is all still new – and now, they hope, it won’t get old.

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