Newcastle United’s victory in the League Cup final on the 16 March has certainly brought out a few wet wipes in the national football media.
Paul Scholes chimed in last week with ‘how it’s only the league cup’ and now you can add ex-Mag w(h)inger John Barnes to the catalogue of bitter comments being directed Eddie Howe and the club’s way.
**Bizarre, bitter comments**
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Barnes has pointed out that ‘the best teams and players make winning a habit’ and that ‘you have to be consistent if you want to be a top player or a top football club’ – absolutely correct, if a little obvious, comments from the former England international.
The 61-year-old, mainly Liverpool legend let’s not forget, then goes on to rant and rave that ‘winning the Carabao Cup isn’t springboard for further success’ (despite it being the first trophy of the recent Man City and Chelsea dynasties) and that ‘if they \[Newcastle\] celebrate too much, they may not win too many matches.’
What about Eddie Howe’s tenure at United so far makes Barnes think the gaffer will let the players rest on their laurels and slump to a run of consecutive defeats between now and the end of the season? Utterly bizarre comments from Barnes and another example that tells us he doesn’t watch Newcastle United regularly.
**“He’ll get the sack!”**
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Perhaps the most egregious part of Barnes’ rant though is this gem: ‘If Eddie Howe is going to lose every game between now and the end of the season, I think he’d get the sack.’ Well, John, if Arne Slot is going to lose every game between now and the end of the season, I think he’d get the sack too.
Again, nothing in Howe’s profile or previous work would suggest he would allow the team to just sit on this trophy and coast now for final 10 games or allow a loser mentality to build and fester in United’s squad between now and the end of the season, despite the winning of a trophy mid-season being a new experience for many of them and the coaching staff.
Barnes’ comments clearly sound bitter and after a 70 year wait why would fans and the team not celebrate? Football is supposed to be aspirational and about shared moments; so, give it a rest please John.
**Toon go fourth – if they win game in hand**
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If United win their game in hand, they go fourth. The game against Palace will not be an easy one but it’s at SJP, so you would expect Newcastle to make the running and force the issue in that game. And if United were to win it they would very much be on for European qualification of a higher order – not a terrible position for the club to find itself in and will certainly focus minds on the season’s run-in with the backup of Conference League qualification (last playoff round anyway) already secured.
Perhaps, Liverpool’s loss to Newcastle in the Carabao Cup Final (a game they were huge favourites for…) has got under Barnes’ skin and made him a little prickly? It certainly seems to have ruffled a few feathers in the national media, which is a shame because Liverpool fans, in the main, have been very gracious in defeat.
It would be churlish of me to tell Barnes that he should probably worry about Arne Slot’s end of season performance rather than Eddie Howe’s seeing as the Dutchman is the one who has been knocked out of Europe and lost a cup final all in the space of a week and not the other way around.
It would be extra churlish of me to say; it would be one for the ages if Liverpool were to bottle the league title from such a position of superiority and end up empty handed at the end of the season. For clarity, I don’t think they will, but it would certainly be a hell of a turn-up for the books…
**Barnes’ full comments:**
_“The best teams and players make winning a habit. You have to be consistent if you want to be a top player or a top football club. Whereas if a player thinks we’ve won a trophy, I can relax now, they’re just going to rest on their laurels and then lose every game between now and the end of the season, and think, that’s okay because we’ve won a trophy.’_
_“What big players and champions do is recognise they’ve won, then continue to give 100% and forget about it. And then of course at the end of the season, or at the end of your career, you may look back and say well you’ve won. But some people want to win the trophy in March and then forget the rest of the season.”_
_“If Eddie Howe is going to lose every game between now and the end of the season, I think he’d get the sack. I don’t think he’d be happy if that happened just because he won a trophy. Newcastle would like to think they could challenge for fourth spot, and they have done for the last two or three years, and they got in the Champions League.”_
_“Is winning the Carabao Cup a springboard? I don’t think that this is. I don’t think had they not won, they wouldn’t have been challenging. Your league form is really a springboard for you to challenge either to win the league or to be regularly in the top four.”_
_“Winning the cup doesn’t mean all of a sudden in the league you’re going to be winning the league or finishing first or second. It’s a feel-good factor that it brings to the city, to the club. If they celebrate too much, they may not win too many matches. But I don’t think all of a sudden they’re going to be winning the league because they won the Carabao Cup.”_