Arne Slot has lost his first major final as Liverpool manager – their 2-1 defeat to Newcastle United at Wembley a disappointing hitch in what’s otherwise been an excellent debut season for Jurgen Klopp’s successor.
Still, Liverpool boast a comfortable 12-point lead over chasers Arsenal at the summit of the Premier League table as they approach the final run-in. They have a massive opportunity to make sure their League Cup final loss is quickly forgotten about.
Slot would not be the first manager to bounce back from the disappointment of losing their first cup final in England. We’ve identified four managers who went on to achieve great success after suffering an early setback.
Rafael Benitez
Jose Mourinho’s first piece of silverware in English football was the League Cup in 2005, an important early springboard for everything else he’d go on to achieve with Chelsea.
Mourinho’s Chelsea won the trophy at the expense of Liverpool, who also had a new face in their dugout that season – Rafael Benitez.
While league results were decidedly mixed – Benitez’s Reds finished four places and 37 points behind Mourinho’s Blues – the bitter taste of the 3-2 extra-time defeat at the Millennium Stadium was swiftly washed away.
Three months later they were the champions of Europe after another thrilling final that went the distance.
Mauricio Pochettino
“What success?” we hear the more churlish among you asking. And that’s a fair question.
Pochettino was sacked by Tottenham after five trophyless years in November 2019. But that statement would be doing a massive disservice to the transformative effect he had at the club.
Seven years after Juande Ramos’ Spurs upset the odds to beat Chelsea in the 2008 League Cup final, Pochettino was unable to repeat the trick with a fairly meek 2-0 defeat to Jose Mourinho’s Blues – who also won the Premier League title at a canter that year.
Still, Pochettino’s debut season at the helm showed plenty of promise and in subsequent years they became a serious outfit to be reckoned with; in 2016-17 they finished 2nd in the Premier League with a massive 86-point tally and a couple of years after that they made it to the Champions League final.
Ultimately Spurs never quite made it over the line to lift any silverware under the Argentinian, destined to be remembered as one of English football’s great ‘nearly’ teams – undoubtedly the best side they’ve had in the modern Premier League era.
Who knows how long it’ll be before they build a team that good again?
Jurgen Klopp
“Nothing until now because we all have to feel it now,” Klopp responded in his post-match Sky Sports interview when asked what he’d said to his players after Liverpool’s 2016 League Cup final defeat to Man City on penalties.
“Of course it is like this, you can fall down and you have to stand up, that’s how it is.
“We cannot change this game now, but we have to carry on, we will carry on of course.”
That season the Reds suffered further disappointment with defeat in the Europa League final.
But carry on they did.
The following year they finished in the top four. Then they reached a Champions League final. Then they won the thing. Then they won the club’s first Premier League title in 30 years before completing the set with an FA Cup and two League Cups.
The last manager to win the trophy.
READ: The three managers in English football history that have won all four major trophies
Eddie Howe
The first English manager to win a major piece of silverware since Harry Redknapp all the way back in 2008, Howe has written himself into Newcastle United folklore by delivering the Magpies’ first major piece of domestic silverware since 1969.
Two years after losing the 2023 League Cup final to Manchester United, Howe’s men went on better to upset the odds and beat Premier League champions-elect Liverpool at Wembley.
What did Newcastle do differently this time around? Not much, apparently – but there was minor, surprisingly logistical, change.
“The biggest change [from 2023] has been our hotel,” the Newcastle manager told Sky Sports ahead of kick-off.
“Our hotel has been outside London, that’s been… two years ago we were right next to Wembley, so we were absorbing everything… supporters, feeling, maybe too early in our build-up.
“Being out of the way, maybe that will make a very small percentage difference.”
Time will tell whether this trophy will spearhead a grand new era for the Tyneside club, but no matter what happens next Howe has made himself a Newcastle United legend.
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