Nine moments which lost Liverpool the Carabao Cup final

This was a victory 70 years in the making for Newcastle, but a defeat which felt increasingly inevitable for weeks as exhaustion and adrenaline have slowly broken Liverpool player-by-player.

Winning the Premier League will mean everything to Arne Slot‘s side, but there is still a vague whiff of disappointment that Europe’s best team for over half the season will only have one trophy to show for it.

In two matches, both Liverpool’s Champions League and Carabao Cup dreams have fallen away, leaving only a procession to the league title remaining. The reality of the impending rebuild and realisation the halcyon days are over is crushing.

The final was won by Newcastle as much as it was lost by Liverpool – but what exactly went wrong?

Alexander-Arnold goes down against PSG

There’s a fair argument the most damaging moment to Liverpool’s Carabao Cup prospects happened on Tuesday, as Trent Alexander-Arnold rolled his ankle and was ruled out of the final.

Liverpool spent most of the final in desperate need of a creative spark and with Mohamed Salah isolated on the right, not helped by how deep Jarell Quansah was playing.

Had Alexander-Arnold made it to Wembley, you have to wonder just how much might have been different – he set up Salah twice in the 3-3 draw at St James’ Park earlier this season.

Alexander-Arnold was forced off against PSG with an injury (Photo: Getty)

Trippier avoids handball penalty

Perhaps the archetypal “you’ve seen them given”, Kieran Trippier handling in the box on 40 minutes – entirely accidentally – while challenging Diogo Jota for the ball could have changed this match entirely.

It was similar to the penalty which won Liverpool the Champions League in 2018-19 – soft but not unfathomable. John Brooks waving it away was for the best in a footballing sense, but not for Liverpool.

Dan Burn rises above Alexis Mac Allister

Slot is right to say he has never seen a header quite like Dan Burn’s in terms of pace and precision from such a distance.

But perhaps he should have done more to account for the power of sheer narrative. Burn had already got his head to one corner in the match and giving him a second was never going to end well.

"It's the boy from Blyth!"

A bullet header from Dan Burn! pic.twitter.com/TWjNryvqeu

— Sky Sports Football (@SkyFootball) March 16, 2025

“I knew Alexis [Mac Allister] wasn’t looking at the ball and I’d be able to get a jump on him,” he said. “I don’t get many [goals] so I saved it for a big occasion. I feel sometimes I get around bodies and it’s tough to get free.”

Jota shanks wide

Liverpool were unquestionably second-best in the first half, but that wouldn’t have mattered had Diogo Jota put his injury-time shot away.

In Salah’s only real moment of quality all game , his cross found Luis Diaz, who headed back to Jota. Surprised to receive the ball, he wildly swung at it, and his shot ended up heading towards the corner flag. What could have been.

Joelinton’s two blocks

The final statistics only mention two Liverpool shots on target, and this is almost entirely down to Joelinton. He made two crucial blocks – one shortly before the second goal and one after.

On 48 minutes a Liverpool cutback was creeping towards Luis Diaz in space when the Brazilian flew into its path, before he threw himself in front of a promising shot 13 minutes later to deflect it out for a corner.

Isak’s flawless finish

You can’t say Liverpool weren’t warned. Less than two minutes after Alexander Isak’s first was ruled off for Bruno Guimaraes obstructing the goalkeeper, Jacob Murphy’s knockdown ended up at the Swede’s feet.

Ibrahima Konate didn’t do enough to stop Tino Livramento’s initial cross, Andy Robertson was outjumped by Jacob Murphy and Isak’s first-time finish was brutal. This was the clinical edge Liverpool required and simply could not muster.

Pope saves from Jones

This game would have looked very different had Nick Pope not saved so well from Curtis Jones’s sharp strike on the hour mark.

Pope flicked out an arm which managed to deflect the searing effort over the bar not long after Jones had come on.

Joelinton avoids a red card

The fact there is more than 30 minutes between the final two moments says plenty about the cadence of this match, but had Joelinton earned a second yellow card for his his cheap dragging down of Harvey Elliott, there would have been longer for Liverpool to equalise against 10 men.

VAR decided it did not meet the bar for a straight red card, but it undoubtedly should have been a yellow, which might well have handed Liverpool a final chance.

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