Marseille 2-1 Newcastle: Dan Burn says Magpies bruised by ’10 minutes of madness’
But it could have been very different after Newcastle managed the white-hot atmosphere so well at the start and gained the upper hand.
The noise levels before kick-off were absolutely deafening; In fact, referee Maurizio Mariani and the referees blew their whistles loudly when they came onto the field for warm-up.
Flares were fired, ticker tapes flickered in the air and a dizzying typhoid sound rose from the terraces, accompanied by a banner reading “For my city, for my club”.
But Newcastle were ready for this.
They had traveled early, trained at the Velodrome on Monday evening and were looking to prepare a little differently on game day, in Howe’s own words, “to keep the players mentally engaged and ready for this game.”
This preparation appeared to pay off against the second team in Ligue 1.
Rather than fearing the crowd, Newcastle made an aggressive start.
They got their reward when Harvey Barnes put his side ahead in the sixth minute to seal the double against Manchester City on Sunday.
But crucially, Newcastle failed to drive home their advantage and Marseille recovered.
The visitors had ample warning after Aubameyang denied a number of opportunities in the first half.
However, the well-traveled Marseille striker was not so forgiving after the break as Newcastle paid the heavy price for a sloppy kick-off.
Defender Fabian Schar pushed the ball forward and his team failed to regain control after losing a series of duels deep in the opposition half.
It was very easy for Timothy Weah to take some players off by passing the ball to Darryl Bakola, and the 17-year-old played a central midfield position towards the right flank of the Newcastle defence.
Marseille’s equalizer was by no means a foregone conclusion, given how far Aubameyang was from goal.
However, goalkeeper Nick Pope raced off his line to get ahead of Aubameyang, but the striker was caught in no-man’s land as he finished superbly from a tight angle down the right wing.
Howe insisted he was “backing” Pope after the game despite his poor decision, noting that the goalkeeper had made “some really good saves against Manchester City just three days ago”.
But this was a night when his team’s weaknesses at the back and away showed up again.
