The Carabao Cup final sees two managers chasing their first trophy with their clubs having endured differing fortunes this season.
Here the PA news agency takes a closer look at the two rivals.
Eddie Howe (Newcastle)
Eddie Howe arrived at St James’ Park in November 2021 knowing he was not the first choice of the club’s new owners as they sought a replacement for Steve Bruce with Unai Emery having turned their offer down.
The impact the 47-year-old has made since might suggest they got lucky despite Emery’s success at Aston Villa since he was finally persuaded to leave Villarreal less than a year later.
Having launched his coaching career in his 20s at youth level at Bournemouth after his playing career had been ended prematurely by a knee injury, Howe swiftly – and somewhat reluctantly – found himself elevated to senior level, and he has never looked back.
In two spells with the Cherries amounting to 10 years – he briefly left the south coast for Burnley – he steered the club from the depths of Sky Bet League Two and a financial crisis into the Premier League, only standing down in 2020 after their five-season stay had drawn to a close.
A studious coach, he spent his time out of the game compiling a detailed dossier ready for his return and after rejecting Celtic amid difficulties over the appointment of his backroom team, chose to relaunch his career with a relegation fight at Newcastle.
It is a measure of the job he has done – albeit aided in no small part by an investment in new signings in excess of £400million – that he dragged the Magpies from 19th place the day he arrived into a Carabao Cup final and the Champions League for the first time in two decades inside 18 months.
Astute squad reinforcement and excellent coaching – his ability to improve the players he inherited has been a feature of his tenure – have helped to create an environment geared towards lasting success.
However, the time is fast-approaching when even a man whose level-headed approach to his job has brought a calm to the chaos on Tyneside needs a tangible return on all the money and effort, and victory at Wembley for a club which has not won a major domestic trophy for 70 years would represent just that.
Arne Slot (Liverpool)
Whatever the result at Wembley, Slot has already exceeded expectations at Anfield.
Given the unenviable task of taking over from Jurgen Klopp there was, externally, an understandable rebalancing of ambitions for this season because no one could do what Klopp did, right? Wrong.
While the wider view was that Liverpool should be happy with a top-four finish during the transition, that was not the opinion of Slot when the season kicked off.
The Dutchman knew he had inherited a top-class squad, Klopp’s bequest to him had been a midfield completely overhauled 12 months earlier, and as it was such an upgrade on his Feyenoord playing staff he was excited by the possibilities.
Part of the criteria which got Slot the job was his reputation for improving players but he could only have dreamed that Mohamed Salah would enjoy arguably the season of his career.
With the Egypt international as the spearhead and Virgil van Dijk the rock at the back, Slot set about tweaking, not disassembling, the Klopp formula and it has paid huge dividends.
They are odds-on to win the Premier League title for the first time in five years having lost just once in opening up a 15-point advantage at the top, although Tuesday’s Champions League exit at the hands of Paris St Germain was a setback.
And all without the need to spend heavily in the transfer market with Federico Chiesa, who has not even been a bit-part player, the only arrival in August for a paltry £12.5m.
Slot’s football is more controlled than his predecessor’s but, when it clicks, no less entertaining or effective.
Winning the first trophy available to him will be validation of that and while a greater prize may be waiting a Wembley win will be no less significant.
