3 hours ago
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On a chilly, fun, boisterous night in Paris, with the Champions League mega-table scrolling away in the background, Newcastle produced a fine performance at the home of the European champions that left both teams outside the automatic qualification slots, but Newcastle much the happier of the two.
A 1-1 draw means Eddie Howe’s team finished 12th overall. They will now enter the knockout phase in the last two weeks of February, as had always seemed likely, to face either Qarabag or Monaco. More surprisingly, Paris Saint-Germain will join them there after some late score-ticker malarkey nudged them out of the top eight.
Howe will take great heart from this performance, as a weakened team recovered from a start that suggested the ceiling might be about to fall in. As for PSG, the rest of Europe will look at the reigning champions with a little less fear. Vitinha remains a wonderful midfield controller, but the furious full-court press that marked last season’s post-Christmas run was absent here. Newcastle were compact, quick in the transitions, and really could have won this game in the second half.
Paris had been a lovely deep languid grey all afternoon, the only city that looks better in drab, sad January light. By kick-off the Parc des Princes was the usual inferno of choreographed noise. But this was a confusingly poised final group phase game at the start, neither fully alive nor fully dead.
A draw could have taken both teams through automatically, albeit pending a vast number of variables elsewhere. There are so many referred problems when you mess with the robustness of a format, and once again this rejigged first phase had been a meander towards a wildly convoluted final night. Straight-line jeopardy is too much to expect. But it should at least be possible to understand what’s going on before the whole thing falls on your head in the final wash-up like the contents of an over-stuffed cupboard.
Howe made five changes here from Sunday, the net effect of which was a switch to a back three. And PSG swarmed all over Newcastle from the start. With 45 seconds gone they were awarded a penalty. Lewis Miley chased Bradley Barcola back towards goal. The ball bobbled up and hit Barcola’s elbow before brushing Miley’s hand. This was deemed a penalty after a screen check. Ousmane Dembélé’s kick was well saved by Nick Pope. It felt right. The penalty was a very soft call.
With seven minutes gone it was 1-0 all the same. The goal was made by a thrust down the right from Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, who danced Dan Burn around a little before easing a pass inside to Vitinha, who had time to ease to his left, gently sit Lewis Hall down, then curl a shot into the corner.
Dembélé might have added a second four minutes later as Newcastle’s backline was repeatedly picked apart by some fine-point passing. For a while they looked horribly porous on the right, where Barcola and the roving Dembélé presented a nightmarish prospect for Miley in a try-it-and-see wing-back role.
With 20 minutes gone Newcastle had settled. Nick Woltemade had a first real chance on 40 minutes but failed to make contact with a header after a long throw (meet: the Premier League). And it was a similar aerial route that led to Newcastle’s equaliser just before half-time. The ball was pumped into the box by Sandro Tonali, headed up in the air awkwardly by Marquinhos, flicked back by Burn and nodded in neatly by Joe Willock.
Newcastle looked the more dangerous team at the start of the second half. Miley showed huge resilience to settle and find his angles on the right. PSG seemed to stall a little. Without the full three-man midfield press they lack a little fury and craft. Barcola did his Barcola thing, dancing, gliding, pirouetting through the Newcastle defence, then spanking a shovel-footed shot towards the upper tiers.
Howe sent on Anthony Gordon and Harvey Barnes with 22 minutes to go and Newcastle standing ninth in the mega-table on current scorelines, PSG still just inside the magic eight. Howe’s front five pressed really high at times. Woltemade dropped deep between Barnes and Gordon and showed his best qualities as a gangling link-man, beanpole playmaker, No 10 manqué.
Luis Enrique had spoken before the game about Newcastle’s physicality, but only in terms of how this makes it even more vital to control the game, take the ball away, meet muscle with craft. Here though Newcastle were compact and smart on the break as this half-alive final game began to throb with late breaking vigour.
Towards the end PSG found themselves fumbling for the throttle again as news seeped through of late goals for Inter that dropped them into the playoff spots. Vitinha spanked the ball just over the bar. Overall PSG had 25 shots to Newcastle’s seven. But they left the pitch to whistles from the home crowd, and with a notable case of aura-depletion in the air.
