"Newcastle cannot complain 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 they 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 this stupendously designed, wonderfully atmospheric arena,"
"Harvey Barnes is far too talented to have spent so much of his Newcastle career warming the bench but here Eddie 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 that contained no room for Newcastle's 70m Germany striker Nick Woltemade."
Eddie Howe warned his players that Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang remained dangerous and would need to be contained. Newcastle began energetically, using a 3-5-2 that paired Harvey Barnes and Anthony Gordon as a front two, leaving Nick Woltemade out. Sandro Tonali drove forward to breach Marseille's lines and Gordon's cutback allowed Barnes to score from around 10 yards, his third in two games. Barnes's double had unsettled Manchester City the previous weekend. Newcastle's intensity proved unsustainable, and Marseille gradually dominated first-half possession. Aubameyang then turned the game and revived Marseille's Champions League prospects.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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