Well, then. It’s time for the review of the 2023 Carabao Cup Final: The Redemption of Karius™️.

The preamble to the final was all about a keeper parachuted in to Newcastle's line-up from oblivion and the risk he posed to their success. In the end, it was his team that let him down.

Alas, it wasn’t the heroic return that many, and most of all Karius himself, would have wanted. No glorious comeback from the depths of which he has plunged. No sipping on a warm celebratory bottle of champagne, with each gulp feeling like liquid satisfaction delivery the purest sense of relief. No-one to put their arm around his should, pointing at him with their free hand, gesturing to the crowd that He. Is. The. Man. None of that.

Redemption was only ever in the eyes of others anyway. When a goalkeeper goes through what Karius did in Kyiv five years ago, self-forgiveness is the only thing you go in search of. You listen to all the advice, the consolation, the reasons why that moment doesn’t define you. But it does. At least in the immediate future. Your brain forms a shortcut between the replaying the incriminating moments and the exact gut-wrenching sensation you felt at the time. You’re left in a state of PTSD.

New games can come and go. New experiences, good and bad, battle for their own place in your consciousness, and while the emotion dulls somewhat, enough not to affect the present, you know the only way to consign them to the very back of your mind’s filing cabinet of memories is to expunge it with a personal victory of equal or greater measure.

Some never get that chance, leaving only time to work it’s lengthy healing process. And even for those who do get their chance and take it, those years can prove arduous and tiring.

When I tried to think of a similar story to Loris Karius, the first person I thought of was Jim Leighton; scapegoated and then dropped for the 1990 FA Cup Final and the subsequent replay. It was a full 8 years before his comeback was complete in the eyes of many, recapturing the Scotland number one spot and installing himself as the starting keeper at France ’98 against Brazil. I think of him first because it’s his experiences in clawing his way back that became a model and an inspiration for my own dark periods.

I’m not sure I could have made it through those first two years at Pittodrie, through the injuries, criticism and downright humiliations. It was serendipitous good fortune to have someone who could not only empathise, but understand the balance of hardwork, support and honesty I needed to come out the other side.

Through writing as I did about Karius for the iPaper last week, it was difficult not to draw on my own experiences and the similarities we shared, granted, on differing scales. I’m loathed to bring this around to myself in here but there is a correlation.

My own Kyiv 2018 was Celtic Park 1999. A concussion, a humiliating seven goals conceded in front of 60,000 and a stint in a Glasgow hospital left it’s mark. The only difference was that I had many more opportunities to right my wrongs over the next 6 years, and was able to put my own trauma by captaining a side to victory there 4 years later. If proof was needed that the scars have well and truly healed it’s that despite @BarcaJim and the Celtic Twitter admin reminding me of it on October the 16th every single year and I can laugh it off. Although the 24 year distance from then to now helps to.

Whilst Sunday didn’t bring about the full recovery victory would have brought Karius, it’s not to say it didn’t serve some purpose for him.

His side were comfortably beaten by Manchester United and despite the cheap shots by some, attempting to lay blame on him for Marcus Rashford’s wickedly deflected strike, he came out of the game with renewed credit. It was not a shot that he “should save”. Could? Maybe. Miraculous though it would have been, but a shot deviating so much from it’s original path, altering it’s pace and hit from such close quarters either requires luck or an ability to slow down time that I’ve only seen on the Matrix.

There were no visible signs of nerves. No more than might be expected in a major Cup Final anyway. A couple of routine shots that bounced just in front of him were more than likely creating more anxiety in me than Loris. I was recalling my own times when confidence was an issue and no shot, no matter how tame it trundled towards you, presented a challenge. Karius’s hands were clean on these occasions.

People will look at this anyway they wish, but if there was any palpable tension, the fact Karius was blameless for the first goal will have actually relieved some pressure, beaten only by the exquisite ball from Luke Shaw and his defensive line not dropping early enough into the gaping space their high positioning afforded the Manchester United left back.

There were saves though, high to his right to comfortably parry away a Wout Weghorst strike in the first half and doing well to drop back towards his line and one-handedly stop Marcus Rashford’s long range effort. They just weren’t enough.

So no, this wasn’t everything Karius would’ve wanted, but Kyiv will definitely look that little bit smaller the next time he glances over his shoulder at it.