It ended Newcastle 1 Barcelona 2.
The opening round of Champions League matches that Eddie How’s side saw beat in St James’ Park.
The ruling LA Liga champions and a Champions League semi-finalist last season, with all three points.
With the last whistle, all of which counts the score of course.
What do the statistics say?
The key underlying statistics of Newcastle 1 Barcelona 2 (statistics via BBC Sport))
Possess Was Newcastle 36% Barcelona 64%
Total number of shots were Newcastle 10 Barcelona 19
Shots on goal were Newcastle 6 Barcelona 5
Corner were Newcastle 6 Barcelona 4
So what should we make of these statistics?
I have just returned to the Newcastle 4 PSGA 1 match, slightly less than two years ago.
In that famous victory, Newcastle United had 27% owned, 12 shots, 8 shots on goal and 1 angle.
PSG had 73% owned, 11 shots, 2 shots on goal and 8 corners.
For extra interest/info – these are the two used NUFC teams and Subs that are used …
Newcastle Team V PSG:
Pope, Trippier, Lascelles, Schar, Burn, Longstaff, Bruno, Tonali (Anderson 65), Almiron (Murphy 71), Isak, Gordon (Targett 90+3)
Newcastle -Team in Barcelona:
Pope, Trippier (Botman 76), Schar (Thiaw 63), Burn, Livramento, Tonali, Bruno, Joelinton (Willock 62), Barnes (Woltemade 62), Gordon, Elanga (Murphy 63)
Comparing and contrasting the PSG and Barcelona matches in St James’ Park
I think that this kind of teams, with many high -quality technical players, would always see PSG and Barcelona in Dominant. In both games, however, the vast majority of that property was in non-threatening areas. Much in the non-threatening two-thirds of the field, not in the last third part, certainly not a case of repeatedly cutting NUFC and creating many clear opportunities in the criminal area.
My conviction is that after the last whistle of last night there is a lot of history rewriting, the last Scoreline (especially when United only scored in the 90th minute) tried to support the idea that when you add the ownership statistics, Barcelona was somehow the better team. I think they have played a lot of fun to keep the ball in the easier two -thirds of the field, but also PSG, even more!
Just like against PSG, I think it was Newcastle United, who was closely the more threatening team against Barcelona, curing more and better clear opportunities, exert more pressure close to Barcelona’s goal than the visitors on the other side.
Newcastle United was easily the better team in the first half last night. During the break, Newcastle had taken four corners compared to just one for Barcelona, while the visitors had not managed any effort on goal (how often are Barcelona so limited?). On the other hand, Anthony Gordon missed the ball completely when only ten meters and Elanga cut it back, while Barnes had a big chance of the rear post that was well saved. Barcelona sometimes had some nice movements, but Newcastle United had more that first half, on top of that clear carved opportunities.
It was just before the hour that Rashford scored his header and I might have been wrong, but I think Barca’s first effort was on target. Things then opened predictably open and became more open, because Eddie Howe made four changes and United had to chase the game, took more risks. As a result of which Barcelona finally allowed some efforts on goal.
One was the winning goal and it was a world class. It was from recruiting outside the box and hit hard, no chance for Nick Pope and it baptized a bit at the last minute and entered the bottom of the bar. That was the margin, a few centimeters, between a second murderer goal or backwarding the woodwork.
Barcelona had more shots last night (19 V 10) but only five of them on goal. This was largely due to the fact that they were almost all from a distance and/or tried to score with a load of defenders for them. Newcastle United, on the other hand, had more efforts on Target (six) than Barca, but from much less general shots (ten). This largely because of the fact that the Newcastle shots generally came from much closer.
Newcastle United with 50% more corners (6 V 4) than Barcelona too. The fact is that you can only get corners if you at least get relatively close to the opposition goal!
United only succeeded in PSGs Acht, in October 2023.
I cannot understand why someone would think last night that on the overall play balance, as evidenced by the above statistics, that Newcastle United was at least worth a point.
Marcus Rashford attracted a great header and a long -distance effort from world class to actually win the game. However, what I am talking about is the overall game, how did Newcastle United play?
Barcelona scored with two great finishes and that was really the difference between the two teams in the night. Against PSG, United scored with four of their twelve shots, but one of the ten last night against Barcelona.
Two years ago, Newcastle was ruthless and clinically with their finish, not so last night, in contrast to Rashford.
I also think that credit to Barcelona, they defended better than PSG in 2023. While on the other they were a great finishes of the man U -loan player, but both could have been prevented with a better defense. Schar took a step back so Rashford gave his chance on a large header, and then burned the ball to him and Rashford passed Tonali and did it again to get himself in a better shooting position.
In addition to the United finish last night, I think there were also many other situations in which they either took the wrong decision, such as postponing a pass or making the wrong one, or the pass was poorly executed.
You saw the way Barcelona wasted time when the last whistle closed and the way they celebrated when it was blown up.
If someone really believes that this was an easy victory, a comfortable walk for Barcelona, you are seriously mistaken.
Barcelona knew that they had been in a very tough game and it was those two top quality finishes, which could win, instead of the point that they actually earned from the overall game.
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