Newcastle United have won the Carabao Cup; it is their first major trophy in 56 years and their first domestic honour in 70. So what happens next?
The Magpies have all the money in the world and while winning the 2025 Carabao Cup was the greatest feeling, 99.9% of the club’s fanbase will ever experience, winning silverware will become the norm and trophyless seasons will soon be frowned upon.
It is a similar tale to Chelsea and Manchester City after their big-money takeovers. These two kicked on to become Premier League juggernauts and European champions – will the floodgates open for Newcastle as well?
Here’s what has happened next when clubs craving world domination win their first trophy…
Chelsea: 2005 League Cup
What better place to start than Jose Mourinho’s first major honour as Chelsea manager? The Special One came in and won the Premier League in his first season at the club, dethroning the Arsenal Invincibles in the process. But first, the Blues claimed the Carling Cup in March 2005, beating none other than Liverpool in the final.
Eddie Howe is no Jose Mourinho but Chelsea post-2004 is what Newcastle want to become under Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund – without all the managerial compensation packages – and probably would become if it wasn’t for the Premier League’s profit and sustainability rules (PSR).
The Carling Cup was the first trophy of the Roman Abramovich era and the club’s first for five years. Mourinho’s side went on to win the 2004/05 Premier League at a canter, conceding a record-low 15 goals across 38 games. Chelsea’s success then veered into the realms of ridiculous. They retained the title under Mourinho and won the FA Cup and Carling Cup in 2007.
Newcastle will be pretty happy if their Carabao Cup success brings them another seven major honours over the next five years.
Manchester City: 2011 FA Cup
City became filthy rich in September 2008 and won their first post-takeover trophy in 2011, beating Stoke City in the FA Cup final. Not only was it the first of many Abu Dhabi trophies, but the club’s first in 35 years, which is a lot of years.
The floodgates most certainly opened after that. City would then win the Premier League the following season and since then, they have claimed six League Cups, seven league titles, two more FA Cups and the Champions League in a Treble-winning 2022/23 campaign.
The unfortunate thing for Newcastle is that, unlike Chelsea and City, they are being held back by PSR. The other two clubs had the freedom to spend to their heart’s content and essentially bought their success. The Magpies have to be a lot more clever, reserved and meticulous in their pursuit of glory; they can’t just go out and spend £50million on full-backs willy-nilly.
Manchester United: 1990 FA Cup
We all know it wasn’t always plain sailing for Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United and winning the FA Cup final in 1990 was probably the biggest result of his Red Devils career.
Denying what would be Crystal Palace’s only trophy to date, Ferguson’s first taste of silverware in England had him wanting more. Before the turn of the millennium, United won five out of seven Premier League titles along with a smattering of FA Cup wins.
Newcastle will not replicate the consistent success Ferguson brought to Old Trafford but even half of that will do…
MORE F365 FEATURES…
👉 Premier League winners and losers: Chelsea, Bissouma, Van Nistelrooy shamed by Forest, Silva and Brentford
👉 When will Liverpool win the league? Earliest, funniest, Arsenal guard of honour, Anfield decider
👉 Premier League worst XI includes £51m Chelsea flop, Ipswich quartet, Man City defender
Arsenal: 1996/97 Premier League
It is not always domestic cups that kick things off for English clubs. Arsene Wenger never won the League Cup in his 22 years at Arsenal but he did win the Premier League in his first full season at the club, snatching the crown from long-time rival Sir Alex. Arsenal did not finish outside the top two for another eight years, winning two more titles and four FA Cups.
Wenger also somehow never retained a league title, nor did he bring a Champions League to north London, but he turned Arsenal into one of the best and biggest clubs in Europe. Under the Frenchman, the Gunners grew a reputation every other team would envy due to his class, development of players and shrewd transfer business.
Arsenal remains a desirable club for players to this day because of how Wenger transformed them and the landscape of English football as a whole, not to mention the players he moulded into legends like Thierry Henry and Patrick Vieira.
Newcastle have been pretty shrewd and Howe is making good players play like great players, but it will always be hard for them to garner the Wenger-like grudging admiration of rival fans given the controversies that have surrounded their Saudi ownership.
Liverpool: 1963/64 Division 1
What a manager Bill Shankly was, by the way. The Scot took Liverpool over in 1959 with the club in the second tier of English football. Five years later they were Division 1 champions. They backed that up with another in 1967 and an FA Cup in 1966. In 1973, Shankly led Liverpool to UEFA Cup glory and a year later he retired.
Shankly’s replacement was Bob Paisley, who was Liverpool manager for nine years. In that time, the Reds won six league titles, three European Cups and three League Cups. Everything they touched turned to, erm, silver, and even Paisley’s replacement, Joe Fagan, led the club to back-to-back European Cup finals, winning in 1984, his first year as manager.
Good luck, Eddie.
MEDIAWATCH: Man Utd ‘oil tanker turning’ and ‘season changing’…all the way up to 13th
Liverpool: 2018/19 Champions League
Jurgen Klopp Klopp Klopp, he did take Liverpool to the top.
Breaking your trophy duck at a club like Liverpool with a Champions League is certainly one way to do it, but was just so Liverpool, who had won Europe’s premier competition and not the actual league in the Premier League era before Klopp backed up that trophy with that long-awaited title win in 2020.
The Reds had the absolute optimum amount of success after the Champions League victory; they have been the Goldilocks club, winning the perfect number of trophies under the German.
Everton: 1984 FA Cup
Everton were competing with a legendary Liverpool team, just as Newcastle will likely be competing with a winning machine in Manchester City.
Considering PSR, the Toffees’ success in the 1980s seems the most achievable of every club here for Newcastle. They won the FA Cup in ’84, their first trophy since winning Divison 1 in 1970 and then ended a 15-year wait for another league title, finished second in ’86 and won it again the following year.
Between their FA Cup win and the 1988/89 season, Everton also won the European Cup Winners’ Cup and might have had more success in Europe if not for a five-year ban on English teams.
Leeds United: 1968 League Cup
Dirty Leeds were b**tards but they were serial winners and that is all their fans care about. Their first trophy in four years came via the League Cup, which was backed up by an Inter-Cities Fairs Cup in the same season.
Leeds won the same competition in 1971 and also enjoyed success in Division 1, finishing first in ’69, second for three consecutive seasons, third once and then first again in ’74.
Nottingham Forest: 1978 League Cup
It was a League Cup victory that set everything in motion for Nottingham Forest and if Eddie Howe can become Newcastle’s Brian Clough, the Toon Army will be pretty happy.
Like Leeds, Forest were a completely different club back in the day, winning trophy after trophy under a legendary manager. After years of misery in lower divisions, Nuno Espirito Santo is somehow close to steering the City Ground club back into Europe’s premier competition.
He has no chance of matching the achievements of Clough, who got Forest promoted to Division 1 in 1977 and won the title in the club’s first season in the top flight, which came shortly after a League Cup win. The success that followed was unprecedented.
Forest would go on to win one more League Cup and two European Cups by the end of the 1979/80 season.