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8 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 throughout a breathless 90 minutes, Newcastle produced a fine away performance at the home of the European champions.
A 1-1 draw means Eddie Howe’s team will now enter the knockout phase in February, as had always seemed likely. Paris Saint-Germain will now join them there after some late score-ticker malarkey sent the reigning champions into the playoffs.
Howe will take huge 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 this team with a little less fear of the furious full-court press that marked last season’s post-Christmas run. Newcastle were compact, powerful in the challenge, 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. And this was a confusingly murky final group phase game, neither fully alive nor fully dead.
Both teams could go straight through or half-through. A draw could take both fully through, depending on a vast number of results elsewhere. There are so many referred problems when you mess with the robustness of a format. Once again the rejigged version 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 suddenly falls on your head in the final wash-up like the contents of an over-stuffed cupboard.
Here Howe made five changes from Sunday’s defeat by Aston Villa, the net effect of which was a switch to a back three. Dan Burn started for the first time this month. Joe Willock got a run in midfield against the best team in Europe, and would end up making a fair go of it.
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 a good height for Nick Pope, who made a fine save. It looked a very soft penalty call.
But 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 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. It was a wonderful goal but also the kind of thing that will happen when you give the best central midfielder in Europe this much time.
Dembélé might have added a second four minutes later after gliding though on the left, as Newcastle’s backline was repeatedly picked apart by some fine-point Paris 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.
But with 20 minutes gone Newcastle had settled and begun to press at the PSG left flank. 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 right on 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 Willock.
And 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. Anthony Elanga seemed happier playing on the break, something he rarely gets to do in the Premier League. Woltemade linked nicely at the heart of some quick transitions.
PSG seemed to stall a little. Without the full three-man midfield press they lack a little of last season’s fury. Barcola did his Barcola thing, dancing, gliding, pirouetting through the Newcastle defence then spanking a wild shovel-footed shot towards the upper tiers. Dembélé nudged a low volleyed shot just past the post. 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 just inside the magic eight.
Luis Enrique had spoken before the game about Newcastle’s strength and 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. This is the possession game mantra. Here though Newcastle were compact and smart on the break as this half-alive final game began to throb with late breaking vigour.
Howe’s front five pressed really high at times. Marquinhos blocked Jacob Ramsey’s close-range shot. Woltemade dropped deep between Barnes and Gordon and showed his best qualities as a gangling link-man, beanpole playmaker, No10 manqué. At the other end Vitinha spanked the ball just over the bar, PSG’s 17th shot of the night to Newcastle’s seven. By the end, aware suddenly of the need to win the game, PSG were unable to crank up through the gears, despite the howls, and ultimately the whistles, of the home crowd.
