Newcastle United star who 'splits opinion' expected to start Carabao Cup final v Liverpool

Newcastle United winger Harvey Barnes has passed his Carabao Cup final audition but only by default - according to our writers.

With Anthony Gordon suspended, Barnes was handed his first Premier League start since December against West Ham United on Monday night. And the 27-year-old made a vital contribution, delivering the cross that Bruno Guimaraes converted to give the Magpies a 1-0 win.

But wasteful in other moments, Liam Kennedy and Jordan Cronin believe it wasn’t the resounding performance Barnes wanted, though it will still be enough to see him start at Wembley against Liverpool on Sunday.

Harvey Barnes passes Wembley audition, though not resoundingly

Speaking on the Geordie Journos YouTube channel, Liam said: “We've had a lot of talk and trying to work out Barnes’ performance, and you both described it as almost like a default position that he's probably earned it because he was so involved today.

“But I thought his involvements with the ball were poor, apart from the cross. I think the number of times he tried to beat his man and just had the ball robbed from him, had chances to have a shot and just seen him block them. Even before that cross, it was just a poor shot selection, a poor final ball until he produced a lovely cross, which you can't complain.

“He's done that consistently, I'm just not sure you can pick a player on producing the odd moment like that in a game.

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“We'd all love it, but there's a lot of work goes in around that as well, you've got to work hard, you can’t gift the opposition possession to flip the ball back over and send the other team on the attack, it happened too often for me today.”

“I think he still splits opinion but if you look at his contributions in the game, he had two first-half chances and he put the cross in for Bruno's goal,” Jordan said. “He was heavily involved and has probably done enough to start the final now.”

Altering his thinking his opinion, Liam agreed: “I'll roll back what I said, when you think about that flick from the [Kieran] Trippier’s half-shot thing, that was really clever, and maybe that's just what he is there for, because he can have those little moments. He’s a moments player.”

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