The Newcastle United manager, who masterminded an end to the club’s barren 70 years without a major domestic honor, identified ahead of the game that it could be decided by a set-piece.

Dan Burns' bullet header handed Newcastle a deserved lead at half-time

But from a Liverpool perspective, there was criticism that the diminutive Alexis Mac Allister ended up marking 6 ft 7 in Burn, especially as earlier in the first half the same combination was nearly exposed from a Newcastle corner.

Eddie Howe reveals advantage ahead of Wembley: “Hopefully that helps us”	Eddie Howe makes honest admission in 'emotional' remarks after Newcastle's League Cup win	Emotional Eddie Howe holds back tears as he pays tribute to his late mum after ending Newcastle's domestic trophy drought in Carabao Cup final

Explaining the set-up for corners, Slot said : “Credit to Newcastle, but I can explain

We play zonal, so we have five players zonally close to our goal

“We have three players that man mark and Macca is one of them and normally a player like Dan Burn runs to the zone because normally - I think he's an exception to that - I've never seen in my life a player from that far away heading a ball with so much force into the far corner.

“So that is part of our logic that they either have to go far away from our zone, which is 99 out of 100 times that will never lead to a goal, or they have to arrive in our zone and then it's an equal battle

So credit to him, I think he's one of the few players that can score a goal from that distance with his head.”


For more news relating to Newcastle United, visit our sister site NUFC Latest Live.