Key events
In the Premier League today, important for Newcastle, this.
Full-time: Fulham 2-0 Tottenham. Marco Silva’s team up to eighth.
Look at the reception Newcastle players got in 1974 after *losing*. The same was true in 1976 when they lost the League Cup final in 1976 to Manchester City.
Bruno’s been a brilliant signing for Newcastle.
“Seventy years is too much to wait,” says Guimarães, who describes the meeting with Liverpool as “our World Cup final”. “Hopefully we can finally bring a trophy back to Newcastle.”
Is this Virgil’s last final for Liverpool?
“I enjoy playing, I enjoy leading the boys out, I enjoy being there for each and every one. I feel that responsibility even more than ever, maybe because I’m getting older slowly. I feel fine. We’ll see what happens in the future.”
A tale of two strikers?
The orthodox view of Núñez’s Liverpool career is that he is simply a poor fit for what Arne Slot is trying to do: a cat trapped in a grand piano, a maverick in a team seeking immaculate control, of emotions as well as the ball. Virtually all his metrics are significantly down from the Jürgen Klopp era: goals, expected goals, expected assists, key passes, dribbles, touches, shots and shots on target. This season Liverpool perform a goal a game worse when he is on the pitch than when he is not. A big Liverpool clearout is expected this summer and the word is they will listen to a serious offer for Núñez.
Isak’s teammates in Sweden’s squad, who should surely be challenging at the business end of tournaments with an attack that also includes Viktor Gyökeres and Dejan Kulusevski, report that he has noticeably hit fresh heights in the past year. “They also say he’s exactly the same person,” Gustafsson says. “His success has not changed him at all.”
Kevin Keegan spoke to Barney Ronay in 2012 about that Liverpool 3-0 Newcastle United game
That was a cup final between two big-supported teams so the atmosphere was unbelievable. Newcastle have a cup tradition that goes back to the 1950s and a lot of supporters remembered that back then in the 1970s. What I remember most was at the hotel Shanks just pinning up this article that Malcolm MacDonald had written [saying Newcastle were going to beat Liverpool]. No team talk, that was it, he just stuck it up and walked out. We felt like schoolkids going up to read what it said. It was a great piece of motivation. We were a club that didn’t shout out about what we were going to do, we just did it, so it was right against what we believed in. We were a very good side and it was a bit disrespectful to be honest. You could argue [MacDonald] was trying to motivate his team and being positive and upbeat. But Shanks used it very cleverly. It was one of the most one‑sided cup finals ever in the end. MacDonald had one shot from about 30 yards that flew miles over the bar, but I can’t remember Clem [Ray Clemence] having a save to make. With my goal, when I hit it I didn’t think it was going to go in, I thought the keeper would make a great save. In the end he pushed it into the corner, which probably made it look even better.
If Liverpool v Newcastle conjures up images of 4-3 Premiership matches of the 1990s, the clubs meeting at Wembley remind of one event only, 51 years, when Brucey – Forsyth, not Grobbelaar – held sway. And so did Kevin Keegan, for Liverpool, not Newcastle. The FA Cup final of 1974.
Preamble
Should you have been in London’s fashionable West End, you will almost certainly have heard an accent to remind of Vera, The Likely Lads or Byker Grove. Anyone shopping for some high-end pottery or handmade shoes in Covent Garden will certainly have heard the Geordie accent. To follow 2023, it’s another big day oot. Now, can it go better than the last time? They’re up against Liverpool, the holders. There will have been a few accents from Brookside, The Black Stuff and The Liver Birds but Liverpool are a trophy-collecting machine again. That said, there’s the scars of losing to PSG to cope with. Howay the lads? Or tears on Tyneside?
Kick-off is at 4.30pm join me.