A traumatic Saturday night at St.James' Park ended with Newcastle surrendering their seventeen game unbeaten PL record, suffering a first home loss of the season and preparing for an unexpected cup final debutant.

Losing again to the only side to have defeated them in 25 games may not have been a massive shock, but the prospect of facing Manchester United in the League Cup Final without Nick Pope was rather more unlikely.

Those scenarios unfolded over a nightmarish 13 minutes during a first half that had begun with the hosts tearing into the visitors as home fans roared their approval, Miguel Almiron spurning a glorious chance early on.

Against the run of play, Jurgen Klopp's side profited from their first meaningful excursion over halfway when Darwin Nunez ran through to score on ten minutes - a VAR check for offside following, although it looked more like the possible offence was handball.

Seven minutes later Nick Pope was again fishing the ball out of the Gallowgate End net, this time after Cody Gakpo firing home following Mo Salah's defence-splitting pass - VAR again refuting hopeful offside claims.

A disaster then threatened to become a calamity when Liverpool poured forward again five minutes later, Pope coming out of his box to deny Salah but deliberately handling the ball after his initial attempt to head it failed.

Off he went, leaving his side a man short, home fans in a state of shock and Martin Dubravka to replace the luckless Elliot Anderson, who was making his first PL start after Joe Willock dropped out with hamstring trouble. One of the home staff also went to brief the ballboys and girls at the Gallowgate End, presumably asking them not to act with undue haste....

Realisation quickly dawned that not only would Pope miss the League Cup Final, but Dubravka's ill-fated Old Trafford loan also disqualified him after featuring for the Red Devils in that competition.

With Karl Darlow out of contention on loan at Hull City, that leaves Eddie Howe with Loris Karius and Mark Gillespie as his goalkeeping options at Wembley; a 45 minute outing against Al-Hilal in December his only pitch time in a Newcastle shirt to date.

As to why Dubravka was on the bench today rather than Karius, the only reason that makes sense is that Howe treated this Premier League game in complete isolation and picked his strongest possible 20 man squad.

Where the eleven men of United had fallen short though, ten players succeeded in keeping a clean sheet. Lesser Newcastle sides - and managers - have folded in circumstances like this, but this was rather more than a defiant rearguard action and had one of their chances gone in, then this game would have been rather more of a contest than it ultimately was.

Giving his best display since torturing Manchester City here in August, Allan Saint-Maximin saw his shot touched onto the crossbar, Dan Burn headed against the same bit of woodwork and Fabian Schar's header whistled just wide of the target after the break.

The most glaring miss of all though came on 82 minutes, when substitute pair Anthony Gordon and Callum Wilson linked up, but the number 9 was denied by Alisson's trailing leg.

A third successive failure to find the net here against Jurgen Klopp's side did little to boost the mood and our lack of form in front of goal is of increasing concern - heightening the anticipation that Bruno Guimaraes will prove to have been the missing link when he returns next week.

At the other end, Liverpool belatedly sought to increase their lead but did so in fairly unconvincing fashion - struggling to make their numerical advantage count against a Magpies side who coped admirably despite being short-handed.

Both Joelinton and Kieran Trippier were withdrawn as a precaution, the latter having taken an accidental boot on the head after challenging Nunez.

Songs of tribute to both Sir Bobby Robson and Christian Atsu during the game gave way to Wembley-related ones after full time, as home fans sought to lift the players ahead of their next game.

While there's despair for Pope though, an incredible opportunity has arisen for our as-yet-unseen German custodian to become part of Tyneside folklore.  

Next Sunday's soundtrack may yet include one more familiar at Twickenham, with the line "coming for to Karius home..."

Biffa