Champions League analysis: Five takeaways from Newcastle’s defeat to Marseille
Newcastle United suffered their second defeat in the Champions League this season as Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang's brace gave Olympique de Marseille their second win of the campaign.
That is now four successive away defeats for The Magpies in all competitions.
Here, Sports News Blitz writer Mosaddek Abu reflects on another disappointing away result for Newcastle.
Harvey Barnes - a man in form
Harvey Barnes' goal against Marseille was his fourth goal in his last five Champions League appearances, and his fourth in his previous three matches in all competitions.
Barnes recorded a brace against Manchester City at the weekend, and he continued his goal-scoring form on Tuesday night.
As long as Barnes is the decisive factor in key moments for the Magpies, then there's no reason to think he will be dropped anytime soon.
His current xG in the Premier League this season is 2.72, and he has scored three goals. So he has overperformed his xG by 0.28
He is currently the top scorer in the team with seven goals to his name.
His work rate and positioning in the right moments have been nothing but a positive note to talk about in this Newcastle side.
Nick Pope's howler killed the Magpies' momentum
Newcastle never recovered after goalkeeper Nick Pope’s howler in the 46th minute that led to Aubameyang’s first goal.
The signs were there towards the end of the first half when they allowed Aubameyang a flurry of chances, but it was Pope’s error that aided the second-half collapse.
Pope’s error immediately killed any momentum Newcastle had built up in the first half, as he rushed off his line in an attempt to get ahead of Aubameyang, but was caught out, and the 36-year-old nipped away, finishing nicely from a tight angle.
The goal pegged the Magpies back and rocked them, and they never recovered from it; there wasn’t that same intensity or pressure coming on to Marseille.
Instead, Eddie Howe’s men let the home side get on top of them.
Newcastle on the ropes
Four minutes after his first goal, he grabbed a second to put Marseille in front as Tino Livramento was beaten on the right-hand side from Timothy Weah, who picked out Aubameyang and tucked it away at the near post.
Dan Burn best described it as “10 minutes of madness.”
They were rocked and down on confidence.
There was an effort to get up the pitch, but they didn’t look like scoring again.
Contrasting to how they were in the first half, where they were on the front foot, physically battling and creatively stringing a few passes together.
In that first half, you could sense that they were a threat.
You couldn’t say the same for the rest of the second.
With the Pope error and then conceding again, there were a few chances but there were not enough players creating opportunities to trouble Marseille.
So that momentum they built in the first 10-15 minutes of the game just evaporated early in the second half.
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Intensity and energy on display
Howe made a valid point in his post-match press conference about the positive performance, noting that despite the errors, there was clearly an effort from all the players involved.
Despite a losing effort away at the Stade Velodrome, the overall performance was a positive note to focus on.
If you compare it to Brentford and West Ham, where Newcastle just looked lethargic, tired, and lacked intensity.
This wasn’t as bad as those two away defeats were.
They started the game with intensity and physicality, and were on the front foot, which allowed Barnes to score inside six minutes.
Even when they let the game slip away, their counter-attack remained effective, troubling Marseille on numerous occasions, particularly in the first half.
For the last 25 minutes of the second half, they reverted to their usual 4-3-3, and Howe made all his subs.
There was that effort in stringing passes together, trying to get higher up the pitch.
As well as a drive to win the ball back, however they never looked like they were going to come away with a draw.
But all those involved tried to make something happen in the dying minutes.
That couldn’t really be said about those away games in the Premier League, where, after they conceded those winning goals, it was game over, and they looked out of it.
The overall performance away to Marseille was one of the better performances they have had this season, despite coming away with nothing.
Failure to take control sees another away defeat
It feels like it’s starting to become a familiar story, doesn’t it?
Against Brentford and West Ham, Newcastle took the lead, but errors and drop-offs prevented the Magpies from winning those games.
This was no different; Pope’s error was obvious. But there were moments throughout the game when possession was sloppy.
Newcastle failed to keep the ball and ended up giving it up to Marseille, more often than not.
The high pressure disappeared also, and they invited the home side to get on top of them.
Within the half-hour mark, Marseille had 76% possession, monopolising the ball.
In the Premier League this season, they have lost nine points from winning positions because there hasn’t been consistency in the way they play.
The only time they looked like a threat against Marseille was on counter-attack, and even then, it didn’t translate into the second half.
That’s not good enough, because they proved on Saturday night against Man City that they can press high against teams, get stuck in, and battle man-to-man.
They were winning the midfield battles and took control throughout large parts of that game; this was missing in their performance on Tuesday night.
The Magpies missed out on an opportunity to extend their spot in the top eight and get a step closer to qualifying for the round of 16.
They dropped to 11th in the Champions League table, and they can’t afford to drop any more points in their next two UCL fixtures, with another away trip coming up, to the Bayer Arena, against Bayer Leverkusen.
If they don’t fix these issues and see out games from winning positions, the workload for Newcastle could increase if they settle for an extra playoff round, rather than an automatic round of 16 spot.
Eddie Howe got the team selection right
There were many questions surrounding the team Howe put out.
One of the obvious ones was Gordon positioned as the starting forward. Where it had been evident in previous games this season that the experiment hadn't worked.
But this is the problem with having only one striker in the team, because Yoane Wissa is yet to return from injury.
Nick Woltemade is the only other available striker to Howe, and he’ll be expected to start against Everton, but what he doesn’t want to do is overload his workload and risk losing the 23-year-old to injury.
Livramento was played at left-back because Lewis Hall isn’t at a stage where he can play three games in one week, having only just returned from injury.
But expect Howe to play Hall and Livramento in their usual positions for the trip to Hill Dickinson.
Obviously, it doesn’t excuse some of the errors made during the game.
But there weren’t many options for Howe other than those, due to a big game coming up away to Everton.
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Pope will come under expected scrutiny, but Howe was keen to back him after the match, saying:
“Nick saved us many, many times. He made some really good saves against Manchester City two days ago; that’s the life of a goalkeeper. But I certainly back him.”
The fans would have liked to have seen Aaron Ramsdale make an appearance, but the biggest thing to come out of those two Carabao Cup games he started was that he wasn’t tested and wasn’t a factor in key moments.
Pope will get the game against Everton just because of the performance against City, but if he messes up again, dropping Pope for Ramsdale will have to be considered by Howe.
Howe obviously sees their upcoming league game as just as important, which he should, because Newcastle are yet to win away from home in the league this season.
He has had to make a few sacrifices to the team and was likely thinking that Gordon's pace could give them an attacking advantage.
But on the night it didn’t, and Howe will work hard to figure out how to change that, but there wasn’t much he could do in terms of the team that was put out against Marseille.
However, it showed that in January, they could do with another striker and two full-backs who can serve as back-ups for Hall and Livramento.
Newcastle have won their last six in all competitions at St James’ Park but have won only once on the road in the previous seven months, which was a 4-0 win over Union Saint Gilloise on October 1.
They sit 11th in the Champions League table, with only a point off eighth-place Sporting CP.
While in the Premier League, they sit 14th, as another big test awaits Eddie Howe and his Magpies - looking to end this horrible spell of “travel sickness.”
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