‘Bring it on’ – Newcastle’s message to Chelsea and Barcelona

Newcastle are certainly enjoying being in the top flight of Europe.

Howe’s side are among the top scorers in the Champions League with 26 goals and have won six matches in a season for the first time.

It’s been a pretty good turnaround in the last two and a half weeks.

Howe was the first to admit he had not done his job “well enough” after his team were booed by a group of fans following their 3-2 Premier League defeat to Brentford at St James’ Park earlier this month.

While the Newcastle head coach embarked on some spiritual quests after the defeat, his players began to “fight for the manager”.

Newcastle have since won four of their last five games in all competitions to secure a place in the knockout rounds.

Given the income gap between the Premier League and some clubs on the continent, and the competitiveness of the top-flight league, outsiders may question whether this will come as a big surprise.

Even the beleaguered Tottenham Hotspur, who sit above the relegation zone in the Premier League, finished in the top eight.

But the pattern of Newcastle’s six Champions League victories against Qarabag, Benfica, PSV Eindhoven, Athletic Club and Union Saint-Gilloise was far from preordained.

For example, Qarabag drew with Chelsea and defeated Benfica, Eintracht Frankfurt and Copenhagen. Newcastle defeated the Azerbaijani Premier League champions.

While Howe wanted more from his much-changed side in their 3-2 return win on Tuesday night, Newcastle showed they could battle the continent’s elite on their day.

Newcastle drew 1-1 against holders Paris St-Germain in the French capital last month and lost narrowly 2-1 to Barcelona in their opening match of the tournament.

No wonder then that defender Dan Burn thinks Newcastle can “compete with anyone”.

“Especially against Paris St-Germain, we showed how good we can be,” he wrote in the program notes.

“I think we are improving our game by going to these matches because there are bigger, better teams at this stage of the competition.”