Eddie Howe has lauded Liverpool as ‘the best team in the Premier League’ as he explained the lengths Newcastle United went to to get the better of the Reds in the League Cup final. Goals either side of half-time from Dan Burn and Alexander Isak earned the Magpies a 2-1 victory at Wembley.

Howe – who Thomas Frank admires – clearly respected the effort put in by Arne Slot’s men towards the final whistle, where that late strike by Chiesa had the Newcastle end of Wembley holding their collective breath.

Liverpool’s response was flailing, Slot simply throwing on forward after forward in a chaotic jumble that recalled Louis van Gaal’s meltdown at Lansdowne Road in 2001, when the man who had updated total football for 1990s Ajax and Barcelona was reduced to punting long balls towards four extremely confused centre-forwards.