Newcastle United has upset the applecart again – Now push on for Champions League | OneFootball

Two years ago, I was strongly advocating that Newcastle United needed to win the League Cup, that a trophy was more important than a Champions League spot.

I was saying this because at that point in 2023, we hadn’t won anything in 54 years (68 years if you’re talking domestically).

Within seconds of the final whistle of the 2023 League Cup Final, my thoughts turned to that coveted fourth place and against the odds, Newcastle United went on to achieve that objective, finishing ahead of Liverpool in the table and well and truly upsetting the status quo.

It seemed that Newcastle United had been reborn and was determined to gatecrash the party.

In a way though, Champions League qualification set us back. Whilst the squad had been significantly bolstered, years of zero investment meant it remained paper thin and consequently, NUFC struggled to cope with the demands of top level European football whilst simultaneously competing at the top of the Premier League and trying to get back to Wembley.

Six games against top, top sides in the so-called group of death took its toll. Two of those sides had previously won the European Cup, the other boasted a centre forward who is the only man not from these shores to have scored a hat-trick in a World Cup Final. That was some opposition!

The reality is, we should have been playing Liverpool in the 2024 League Cup Final, but injuries and fatigue put paid to that.

Against the odds, we rallied in the Premier League and after winning at Brentford on the last day of the season, cemented a place in the UEFA Conference League, or so we thought, Man United ousting us after somehow winning the FA Cup the following week.

This season we’ve had our ups and downs, but in the League Cup, Newcastle United have been impervious.

It’s been well documented that we’ve taken on and beaten the current top four in the Premier League to lift the trophy, which is an incredible achievement and unlikely to have happened before.

Consider the events of the penalty shootout on that balmy evening back in August on the banks of the river Trent. Neco Williams had put Forest 3-1 up after Joelinton’s miss. Teams rarely win a shootout (see photo above) from such an adverse position, but we found the inner strength and five penalties later, 1-3 had become 4-3 as Bruno, Gordon and Longstaff added to Isak’s opener.

Then there was Chelsea on the night before Halloween, a team we’d lost to in the league just three days earlier, Newcastle United surrendering so tamely at Stamford Bridge in what I still consider our worst performance of the season. At St James’ Park though completely dominating the cockneys in a scintillating first half, where Isak and an own goal from Disasi put the game out of reach before half time.

Next up in the Carabao Cup were Brentford, a week before Christmas, similar circumstances, NUFC having lost in the league at their place ten days earlier, we blew another side from West London away, Sandro Tonali scoring twice with Fabian Schar getting the other, adding to the one he got from the penalty spot against AFC Wimbledon in Round Three.

That win against Brentford was number two in a winning sequence that stretched to nine in the end, and which included a 2-0 win at the Emirates in the League Cup Semi-Final first leg, against an Arsenal side made to look very ordinary, the last time we’d won there being fifteen years since. Mikel Arteta’s mob were dispatched by the same score in the second leg, NUFC now leading the Gunners by five goals to nil, after the three matches against them this season.

And so, to Liverpool in the final.

Premier league leaders and they’re probably going to win it, another team we’d lost to in the league in the run up to our League Cup encounter, Eddie Howe honestly explaining to the world how we’d kept something back at Anfield.

That tells me King Eddie was prioritising the cup. Why? Do I need to spell it out? I can try, but won’t do it justice.

The post-match reaction has been remarkable, quite incredible really. The relief, the happiness and the tears, the collective release of seventy years of pain in Wembley Stadium, across the capital and back home, an absolute joy to behold. The first time a club from outside the so called top six winning this trophy in over a decade. Just like our 2023 Champions League qualification, Newcastle United has upset the applecart again.

The League Cup doesn’t just mean silverware. With it comes a UEFA Conference League place and that means the pressure is off, if obtaining European football by the season’s end is a stated objective. Of course, we will be aiming higher and here’s where I’m going to be greedy – now we’ve got the proverbial monkey off our back, let’s use that momentum to kick on and finish in the top four/five.

I tell you what though, we must be dead certs for the Conference League already and I wouldn’t knock it if that’s where we end up and we lift that one next season.