Eddie Howe wasn’t comfortable letting Karl Darlow leave in January

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Eddie Howe had serious doubts about letting Karl Darlow leave the club on loan in January and now the decision has come back to haunt him with Loris Karius set to make his Newcastle debut in the Carabao Cup final.

Eddie made the decisions for the players

The Daily Mail has suggested that Newcastle boss, Eddie Howe was not entirely comfortable with letting Darlow head off to Hull at the end of the January transfer window and, in what will definitely feel like a gut-punch to Loris Karius, has suggested that Howe would much rather have Darlow or Martin Dubravka available to choose from on Sunday.

Dubravka will not be involved in any capacity when Newcastle take on Manchester United at Wembley on Sunday due to being cup-tied after making his only Manchester United appearances is the Carabao Cup.

The Dubravka deal was another one that Howe had serious doubts about, but in the case of both deals, he went with what the player wanted.

Now Eddie Howe is ruing the decisions he made regarding his goalkeepers after Nick Pope found himself heading for an early bath on Saturday when he was dismissed for a blatant hand ball outside of his area, and given that he’d denied Mo Salah a clear goalscoring opportunity, he had to receive his marching orders.

The one-game suspension falls on Newcastle’s biggest game of the season and Dubravka’s cup-tied situation and Darlow’s lack of recall clause mean that the Magpies have to rely on German stopper, Loris Karius whose last competitive appearance was two years ago for Liverpool, also in a cup final and well … nobody needs reminding of what happened there, do they? Let’s just say, it wasn’t a great night for the big man.

Karius has lifted a trophy with the Toon already

On the flip side, though, we have to remember that Karius’ one and only Newcastle appearance saw him lift a trophy when he helped the side secure a 5-0 win over Al-Hilal for the Diriyah Season Cup during the World Cup break.

At the end of the day, we don’t have a magic wand or a time machine to go back and fix these things, so we have to take the positives where we can: Newcastle still had flashes of brilliance on Saturday when we were down to 10 men, Allan Saint-Maximin looks to have rediscovered his form and Loris Karius hasn’t conceded a goal when representing Newcastle. We can do this.