Newcastle cannot complain that they were not warned. Eddie Howe had cautioned his players that Pierre‑Emerick Aubameyang was “as good as ever” and would need to be “controlled” but, ultimately, the visitors proved powerless to prevent the 36-year-old transforming both the match and Marseille’s Champions League ambitions.
While Aubameyang fulfilled the soaring expectations of a raucously loud audience at a stupendously designed, incredibly atmospheric arena, Howe’s team started brightly before taking a wrong turn. They ended up mugged in the manner of naive tourists who had wandered into the wrong arrondissement of this beguiling yet sometimes brutal city.
Although Newcastle retain genuine hopes of advancement into the knockout phase, their persistent travel sickness – they have won away once since April – dictates that unwanted playoff involvement may yet be required.
“That was particularly painful,” Howe said. “We’d worked ourselves into a strong position but 10 minutes at the start of the second half cost us. It’s a big disappointment because we played so well in the first half. There’s a big feeling of frustration. We dealt well with the hostile atmosphere but we didn’t react well to their first goal. It was a concentration lapse. We’re bruised but we’ll come back better.”
Harvey Barnes is far too talented to have spent so much of his Newcastle career warming the bench, but here Howe hit upon a solution as to how to force two into one and accommodate both his left wingers, Barnes and Anthony Gordon, in the starting XI.
It involved that duo morphing into a front two in a 3-5-2 formation lacking the £70m Germany striker Nick Woltemade. Yet if Howe was happy to rotate the initially benched Woltemade, Sandro Tonali enjoys virtually undroppable status on Tyneside.
Sure enough, the Italy midfielder soon proved his worth by accelerating forward and breaking the Marseille lines before watching Gordon nudge his cut‑back in the direction of Barnes. All that remained was for Newcastle’s man of the moment to score his third goal in two games by lashing a 10‑yard, left-foot shot beyond Geronimo Rulli.
Barnes’s double had undone Manchester City in the Premier League last Saturday and now he had Roberto De Zerbi’s team firmly on the back foot as Newcastle initially pressed their hosts high and hard. Marseille’s Pierre-Emile Højbjerg performed wonders to clear Malick Thiaw’s header off the line.
Howe’s only problem was that, not for the first time, his players could not possibly sustain such intensity and, almost incrementally, their hosts began dominating possession.
Marseille also started creating chances. One of the more notable involved Mason Greenwood, the Manchester United outcast turned Ligue 1’s leading scorer, playing in Aubameyang. The former Arsenal striker controlled the ball on his chest before swivelling imperiously and forcing Nick Pope into a decent save.
Greenwood was facing Premier League opposition for the first time since leaving Old Trafford and his increasingly clever attacking link play represented a key reason why Newcastle’s lead always seemed fragile.
Suddenly Howe’s team were playing on the counterattack but that was not necessarily an entirely bad thing for an XI possessing such petrifying pace on the break. As if to prove that point, Gordon showed Argentina’s Leonardo Balderdi and his co-defenders a clean pair of heels before forcing Rulli into a fine save following a through ball from the recalled, and impressive, Joe Willock.
Not that Willock or his teammates would prove exactly flawless. An extraordinary opening to the second half from De Zerbi’s side ruthlessly exposed Newcastle’s defensive fault-lines as the Stade Vélodrome dared to dream of springtime European involvement once more.
First, just 18 seconds into the new half, Aubameyang connected with a long ball from the 17-year-old Darryl Bakola and the soon to be heavily criticised Pope was left stranded after inexplicably rushing off his line.
Aubameyang duly delighted in rounding the visiting keeper and shooting expertly into an empty net but the extreme tightness of the angle underlined the sheer, and undimmed, quality of his finishing ability.
If that was a sublime equaliser, Aubameyang was not quite done yet. Having taking the briefest of breathers while Barnes saw another “goal” disallowed, correctly, for offside, the veteran resumed his rescue mission.
This time the Gabon forward received some constructive help from Timothy Weah – son of George – down the right. More specifically he made the most of Weah’s cross courtesy of an instinctive near‑post half‑volley past Pope.
Although Willock’s drive subsequently stretched Rulli – his head now swathed in enormous white bandages after Dan Burn accidentally stood on his skull – to the limit Newcastle had been thoroughly dissected by a striker threatening to redefine the term “evergreen”.
“I’m feeling great, even if I’m 36,” Aubameyang said after ambling off to a standing ovation. “I want to play more Champions League games and score more goals.”
