Eddie Howe 'masterclass' admired by Jamie Carragher as hidden Newcastle United tactic pays off

Jamie Carragher is still licking his wounds after watching his beloved Liverpool lose the Carabao Cup final over the weekend. However, the Reds great swallowed his pride to heap praise on Newcastle United boss Eddie Howe in the aftermath of Sunday's 2-1 victory.

It was a header from none other than Dan Burn that kicked proceedings off shortly before half-time, with a post-match Liverpool inquest emerging over how the 6 foot 7 defender was able to find so much space as Kieran Trippier floated a corner into the danger area.

Howe, after the game, admitted Newcastle had been attempting set piece routines all week but insisted 'if you had seen us in practice you would have said we had no chance' of getting the better of Liverpool from those dead-ball situations. Not only that but the Newcastle boss also let slip that he had deliberately changed from his regular tactics at Anfield last month as to not allow Arne Slot's side the chance to work Newcastle out ahead of the following fixture.

“Speaking to Eddie Howe at the end of the game, he said they’d been practicing set pieces for that game for two weeks," Carragher told Jamie Carragher The Overlap Fan Debate, via Sky Bet, this week. "I’m a massive fan of Eddie Howe as a manager, and I was always thinking Liverpool should be ready for every corner.

"Whenever you’ve worked on something set-piece wise, you always do it on the first one – players aren’t clever enough to think to do it on the third or fourth. I’m not having a go at Liverpool, but Eddie Howe said to us at Anfield that he deliberately played differently to how he was going to play in the Carabao Cup to not throw their hand.

"That’s a masterclass in getting right for that game – he had those few weeks before the game to focus only on the game, that Liverpool didn’t have.”

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