AC Milan strike late to send Newcastle crashing out of Europe

Champions League: Newcastle 1 AC Milan 2

Newcastle’s European odyssey is over. On a night of wildly oscillating emotions on Tyneside, Samuel Chukwueze stepped off the Milan substitutes’ bench and scored with his first touch to send his side into the Europa League and Eddie Howe’s team crashing out of continental combat.

For much of the evening Stefano Pioli’s players were firmly on the back foot and bullied by Joelinton and co but the visiting manager’s inspired 83rd-minute treble substitution ended with all three newcomers, Luka Jovic, Noah Okafor and Chukwueze , chipping in as the latter swept the ball beyond Martin Dubravka a minute later.

All the pre-match talk centred on Loris Karius, Newcastle’s third-choice goalkeeper, potentially making a first Champions League appearance since his calamitous display in the 2018 final for Liverpool. Instead Dubravka passed a late fitness test, leaving Karius to take his place on a slimline substitutes’ bench, featuring only seven players including the academy goalkeeper Adam Harrison.

Milan have fitness problems of their own but Pioli named a full complement of 11 substitutes. Most significantly Rafael Leão, Pioli’s outstanding left winger, was fit to start following a month spent hamstrung on the sidelines. Yet if Eddie Howe still has far too many players in Newcastle’s treatment room, he was able to welcome Dan Burn back to a bench also including Alexander Isak. With Callum Wilson deemed sufficiently fit to start, Isak, latterly out of sorts and looking increasingly exhausted, was offered a badly needed breather.

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Out on the pitch things began in rather breathless mode. Howe had asked his players to “come out with all guns blazing” and they did not disappoint. Indeed, Newcastle started extremely well, persistently forcing Milan into defensive blind alleys and attacking cul-de-sacs.

Yet as much as Milan’s defence was slightly ersatz – Fikayo Tomori was their only fit specialist centre-half – Newcastle’s initial attacking sound and fury did not amount to quite as much as it promised. Although Mike Maignan looked suitably relieved when Kieran Trippier failed to apply quite enough dip to a dangerously positioned free kick, Pioli’s goalkeeper was not worked as hard as Howe might have hoped.

Or at least not until he was beaten by Joelinton’s shot, only for the excellent Tomori to intercept with a fabulous block just as the onrushing Miguel Almirón shaped to tap over the line. Howe may not have been best pleased that, rather than an instant right-footed shot, Almirón waited for the loose ball to drop on to his left, helping Tomori’s intervention.

Dubravka meanwhile remained virtually untested as Olivier Giroud and co struggled to work a keeper nursing a fragile shoulder and back. Admittedly one first half cameo involving Leão showing off his destabilising change of pace and bamboozling the home defence seemed to give Howe a bit of a fright but Christian Pulisic could not make the most of the resultant opportunity.

The big question was whether Newcastle could sustain the intensity of their ferocious early tempo. Perhaps inevitably, it dropped a little as half-time beckoned and when Leão tricked Trippier, the Portugal winger was able to curl a shot narrowly wide.

Leão though often seemed to present a one-man counter-attacking menace as, high on the adrenaline of playing beneath the St James’ Park floodlights in front of their raucously adoring public, Newcastle were unrecognisable from the side that conceded seven goals in their last two games against Everton and Tottenham. For protracted periods Milan simply did not know how to handle them and struggled to establish any semblance of a passing rhythm.

Hats off to the 17-year-old Newcastle academy graduate Lewis Miley, whose characteristically smart pass paved the way for Joelinton to nearly lift the roof off the stadium by shooting Newcastle into a deserved lead.

After taking a steadying touch, the Brazilian’s ensuing shot from the edge of the area, flew inexorably beyond Maignan. Howe’s left-sided midfielder joined Newcastle as a £40m centre-forward and delighted in reminding everyone precisely why scouts once saw him as a new Alan Shearer.

Had Sandro Tonali, Howe’s £55m former Milan midfielder, not been watching from the posh seats as he serves a 10-month suspension for contravening Italian betting regulations, Miley may well have spent the evening on the bench.

After falling behind Milan became so unnerved that they resorted increasingly to optimistic long balls while Maignan became so annoyed with a perceived lack of protection that he argued long and hard with the referee even after being booked for dissent.

If the visiting keeper had reason not to relish being felled by Joelinton, his overreaction seemed a microcosm of the simmering tensions within a Serie A club where the American owners have just parachuted Zlatan Ibrahimovic in as a special adviser.

The former Milan striker would surely have polished off the decent shooting chance spurned early in the second half by Wilson but he may have detected faint reasons for hope as Newcastle finally began struggling to sustain a high press and Pioli’s players belatedly enjoyed a bit of possession. Suddenly even the outstanding Joelinton began to look human after all.

Soon Howe was frowning after Pulisic equalised at the end of a move involving Tomori connecting with Leão’s deep cross only to miscue an attempted shot. No matter – the ball fell to Giroud who slid it across goal for Pulisic to apply the finishing touch from six yards.

How quickly things can change. From being within touching distance of the last 16, Newcastle were clinging on to a place in the Europa League’s knockout phase. With Trippier replaced by Burn, Tino Livramento was now duelling with Leão.

The narrative almost switched back but Maignan performed wonders to somehow tip Bruno Guimarães’s curving goalbound shot from the edge of the area on to the bar.

Then Leão, clean through, shot fractionally wide with the goal at his mercy. He thought he had blown it but Chukwueze had other ideas.

- Guardian

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