Anzhi Makhachkala 0 Newcastle Utd 0: Hatem Ben Arfa passed up a golden opportunity to celebrate his 26th birthday in style as Newcastle claimed a hard-fought draw in Moscow yesterday. The Frenchman was played in on goal by compatriot Yohan Cabaye with 64 minutes gone, but could not beat goalkeeper Vladimir Gabulov with an ambitious chipped effort.
An away goal would have seen Newcastle take a significant step towards the quarter-finals, although had goalkeeper Rob Elliot not made two excellent saves from Samuel Eto’o either side of half-time, Anzhi Makhachkala could have been heading for St James’ Park next week with a lead to defend.
Alan Pardew would have been the happier of the two managers after seeing his much-changed side cope with the artificial pitch and plummeting temperatures at the Luzhniki Stadium to deny the hosts a home victory in Europe for the first time in eight attempts this season.
Pardew was without six members of his strongest side with Tim Krul, Fabricio Coloccini, Mathieu Debuchy, Jonas Gutierrez, Yoan Gouffran and Papiss Cisse left behind for a variety of reasons, and he chose to leave Steven Taylor, Davide Santon and Cheick Tiote sitting on the bench.
That meant fielding a starting XI without a single recognised striker as Ben Arfa was asked to lead the line.
In the circumstances, it was perhaps not surprising that the visitors failed to muster a single effort on target during the opening 45 minutes.
Small part
But Anzhi were little more threatening in a half which did little to excite a sparsely-populated stadium.
Newcastle’s cause was helped in no small part by Brazilian Willian’s premature departure through injury after 23 minutes.
Newcastle featured as an attacking threat only fleetingly with Gabriel Obertan keeping full-back Andrei Eschenko occupied at times
In the event, it was Elliot who made the game’s first save five minutes before the break, tipping Eto’o’s dipping drive from distance over the bar.
Anzhi resumed in determined fashion and it took a brave block by central defender James Perch to prevent substitute Lacina Traore’s shot from troubling Elliot.
Ben Arfa was handed a glorious opportunity to give the visitors the lead when he was played in by Cabaye, but saw his chip blocked by Gabulov.
