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Eddie Howe has a number of decisions to make ahead of Sunday’s Carabao Cup final - with his biggest call on who to start in goal.
Unlike two years ago, when Howe was limited to selecting just Loris Karius with both Nick Pope and Martin Dubravka unavailable due to Pope’s suspension and the Slovakian being cup tied, Howe now has both goalkeepers available for selection. And both have played matches in recent weeks.
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Dubravka’s long run of starts, during Newcastle United’s best period of results of the campaign to date, came to a halt last month when Pope was selected for their FA Cup trip to Birmingham City. Dubravka was reinstated for the trip to the Etihad Stadium a week later, but then dropped out of the starting side for the visit of Nottingham Forest.
Pope would again play at Anfield before Dubravka was once more reinstated to the team for their FA Cup clash against Brighton. Howe opted to make another change in goal for Monday night’s match against West Ham - one that saw Newcastle United keep a clean sheet for the first time since their Carabao Cup semi-final second-leg win over Arsenal in early February.
Eddie Howe’s selection dilemma v Liverpool
Howe is in a unique situation of having two goalkeepers available to him without either of them suffering from any sort of rustiness. Whilst Karius did very little, if anything at all, wrong in the 2023 final, not having Pope, who had been in very good form to that point in the campaign, was a big blow in the week leading up to that game.
There is little semblance of that exact uncertainty this time around, however, you would have to be a brave person to bet on which of the pair Howe picks to start Sunday’s final. His decision to select Pope at the London Stadium may have been a hint, although with Dubravka having played in their last three outings in this competition, and in six of their nine cup matches this term, it may be that Howe opts to pick the 36-year-old as his cup goalkeeper.
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There is only one person that knows the answer to this dilemma - Newcastle United’s head coach. So what will Howe do on Sunday? Well, as expected, he was coy on giving away too much information: “Everyone will find out at the same time when I name the team,” Howe responded. “When that will be I'll leave that to myself, not to you guys.
“I think the team selection for these types of games is always difficult because there'll be players that are disappointed naturally, everyone wants to play in the bigger games, so I can only pick 11.”
He added: “Genuinely, whenever I look at a team selection for any game there's always decisions to make. That'll be no different for this game because you're always looking at the opposition in your own strengths and trying to figure out what players need to go up against certain players so that's what we've done. We don't have a huge pool of players to select from that, that's pretty obvious, we have a very tight squad.”
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