The CarabHowe Cup and walking on the Moon | OneFootball

Last Wednesday was a special night, the performance and atmosphere can be almost symbiotic at St James’ Park and neither let us down under the lights.

Now we have a trip to Wembley on March 16th and what an opponent to face.

The form team of the year.

The team top of the Premier League.

The team that topped the 36 club Champions League league stage.

The one Premier League team that Eddie Howe is yet to beat as Newcastle United manager (ignoring Luton, who only spent one year in the division).

The team in fact that no Newcastle United manager has beaten for close to a decade (our last 15 meetings reading 10 losses and 5 draws)

The team that has won this very trophy more than any other. Winners of two of the last three editions of the competition.

The team hopeful of a historic treble (Plymouth denying them the chance of an even more historic quadruple).

Are we about to become another footnote in history?

In 1998 we lost the FA Cup final as Arsenal sealed a double. The following year, Manchester United confirmed their own double, beating us in the final of the same competition, en route to a treble. Liverpool are firm favourites for the title.

Might Newcastle United be their first victims as they scoop up a clutch of trophies?

Since Eddie Howe took over at St James’ Park, no other team has won as many Carabao Cup games as Newcastle United.

Ignoring Steve Bruce’s ‘we didn’t lose on the night’ theory (so taking draws that led to extra time/penalty wins as wins) we have won fourteen matches.

Newcastle United won six on the way to the 2023 final, including both legs of the semi-final. We won two last year, coming in a stage later due to our European commitments, then only beaten on penalties by Chelsea in the quarters after a late equaliser for them at Stamford Bridge.

This season, it is six wins again, with both semi-finals yielding victories and us joining the competition at round two once more.

In three years and sixteen fixtures, Eddie Howe’s Newcastle United have only lost two games. One of those on penalties and the other a final. And we have by no means been given an easy run of it.

The 2023 journey didn’t present too many challenges. Apart from the early away tie at Tranmere, the rest of our games were at home and were all to weaker Premier League sides. Still, they were Premier League sides all the same. Palace, Bournemouth and Leicester all dispatched at home, before we won both legs of the semi-final tie against Southampton.

In 2024 we had to better Man City at St James’ Park before schooling the team that had ended our dreams the previous season with a 3-0 routing at Old Trafford.

As mentioned previously, we led for most of the game at Stamford Bridge, until a late equaliser. That goal only came from a rare Trippier error. Had we won that, we’d have had two legs against Middlesborough and would have fancied qualifying for our second final in a row.

This season, it’s been in-form Forest away, then Wimbledon, Chelsea and Brentford at home, before Arsenal home and away. As somebody else wrote last week; as things stand, we’ve beaten three of the top four to get this far with the last one left to play.

Now we have the last of that top four. The team at the very top. We’ve progressed to the final level boss. The biggest and baddest of the lot. Liverpool are second in Carabao Cup form, during the Howe era, winning ten matches in the last three campaigns. They won the competition last year but drew one of their semi-final legs against Fulham. They have come in a round later than us in two of the seasons, but they also lost to Spurs in one of the semi-finals this time around and in the 2023 campaign were knocked out by Man City in their second match (the fourth round).

The records of each of the ‘big six’ sides in this competition is as follows:

Liverpool: Thirteen games, ten wins, two losses, one draw Man United: Ten games, eight wins, two losses Chelsea: Ten games, six wins, four losses Arsenal: Eight games, four wins, four losses Tottenham: Seven games, four wins, three losses Man City: Six games, three wins, three losses

Yes, you can argue that the top teams rotate their squads in this competition, but that is rarely the case anymore, especially when playing other Premier League outfits.

Since 2014 this competition has only been won by one of Man City, Man Utd, Liverpool or Chelsea.

The bigger teams do rest players occasionally but we have done likewise. That famous victory at Old Trafford saw a host of changes for both sides but it was us that recorded an emphatic victory.

We have beaten four of those mighty six teams in the last three cup campaigns and have done so against three of the four who have dominated the winner’s charts over the last eleven seasons. We’ve also only lost to teams that have won the competition in the eleven years since Swansea were champions.

This competition truly has become the CarabHowe Cup and what better opponent to face?

Will it be Liverpool adding their name to the cup for the 11th time, or will we lift our first major trophy since man first walked on the moon?