Alan Shearer now adds his voice to the choir as Eddie Howe decision on Wednesday continues to be questioned

Eddie Howe made a couple of big calls on Wednesday night as the Toon boss had to shuffle his tactics following the late withdrawal of Alexander Isak.

Just hours before kick-off, Eddie Howe had to rip up his plans and start again as it was declared that it would be too risky to play Alexander Isak with the striker complaining of a groin issue.

As a result, Howe set his team up in a 4-4-2, deploying Anthony Gordon alongside Callum Wilson for a big of extra support, and using Joe Willock down the left.

It's a move that has been questioned by ourselves as well as Stephen Warnock on Match of the Day. Now, Alan Shearer has joined in.

Alan Shearer says what we were all thinking

Speaking about Wednesday's match on The Rest Is Football podcast, Alan Shearer feels the decision robbed Newcastle of an avenue of attack in the form of Anthony Gordon running at Trent Alexander-Arnold, which we identified as an area we could get joy before the game.

“He chose to play Gordon alongside Wilson which I was slightly surprised about.

“I guess he wanted to try and stop that ball into Liverpool’s midfield because they are good at that and very dangerous from that and love to build up from that position.

“But what that then did was took the threat of Gordon against Trent Alexander-Arnold down Newcastle’s left, Liverpool’s right which I felt would have been a really interesting battle. Running at Trent you might get a bit of joy. But we rarely saw that because of what Eddie decided to do.

“I guess my takeaway from the game is that the best team won. Liverpool pretty much dominated. Newcastle had one opportunity to make it 1-1 in the first half but other than that Newcastle really didn’t threaten. I don’t think any Newcastle fan will have any doubt or complain about the result.”

Eddie Howe has the opportunity to correct his error in around two weeks time

Hopefully, at Wembley, Anthony Gordon will be back where he belongs and he can torture Trent Alexander-Arnold for 90 minutes and create some chances for Newcastle.

There aren't many cracks in Liverpool's side to exploit but Trent's defensive abilities is definitely one of them, and while Howe missed a trick on Wednesday, we expect he'll not do the same at Wembley.

It's getting scarily close, isn't it? HOWAY EDDIE HOWE'S CUP FINAL MAGS!