Champions League<\/a> on something of a minor high.<\/p>\n\u201cThey stabilised and made it difficult for us,\u201d Howe said. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot we can improve on but this is an amazing competition and the most important thing is that we\u2019re in the last 16.\u201d<\/p>\n
After his side\u2019s \u00adchastening 6-1 first leg defeat in Baku last week, Gurbanov had instructed his players to \u201cbe more careful and more responsible\u201d on this truly fleeting visit to north-east England. Qarabag did not arrive on Tyneside until 11pm on Monday night and were due to board a six-hour flight straight back to Azerbaijan after the final whistle here. Throw in the four-hour time difference and it seemed a particularly exhausting schedule hardly conducive to making any sort of comeback.<\/p>\n
Gurbanov merely sought a spot of pride restoration but the sight of his defender Kevin Medina kneeling on the turf and praying immediately before kick-off did not entirely inspire confidence. Sure enough Qarabag\u2019s five-man rearguard fell apart in the fourth minute when Sandro Tonali applied the final touch to an attacking move he had initiated.<\/p>\n
Sandro Tonali drills in Newcastle\u2019s opener four minutes into the second leg. Photograph: Adam Vaughan\/EPA<\/p>\n
Two minutes later Gurbanov was staring, fixedly, at the ground as Joelinton met a cross from the impressive Harvey Barnes on the volley and watched the ball fly beyond the helpless Mateusz Kochalski.<\/p>\n
Howe does not rank among football\u2019s more enthusiastic rotators but, given that healthy first-leg lead, Newcastle\u2019s manager felt sufficiently confident to make seven changes from last Saturday\u2019s 2-1 defeat at \u00adManchester City. The 21-year-old Irish defender, Alex Murphy, was offered a first start at left-back while Newcastle\u2019s leading Champions League scorer, Anthony Gordon, initially warmed the bench. Murphy had a good game and perhaps deserves a Premier League chance.<\/p>\n
There was, though, a starting place for Nick Woltemade in a fluid attacking midfield role behind the ineffective William Osula. There is quite a debate as to whether the \u00a369m Germany striker is best deployed as a No 8, 9, or 10,<\/p>\n
Here Woltemade offered a flexible interpretation of the No 10 brief with some of his clever link play initially confusing Qarabag to the point where they must have briefly wondered if Uefa might offer them special dispensation to depart for the airport at half time. Yet as much as Gurbanov\u2019s players looked nervous of Joelinton \u2013 later disgruntled to be withdrawn at a moment when he was in peril of collecting a second booking \u2013 and rarely managed to second guess Tonali, they refused to fold.<\/p>\n
Instead, to their immense credit, they improved considerably as the first half wore on with Aaron Ramsdale forced to stretch out a leg and make a smart save to deny Elvin Jafarguliyev.<\/p>\n
Admittedly Jacob Murphy missed an inviting chance after being deftly cued up by Woltemade but the visitors were not about to surrender and after a counterattack Ramsdale needed to make a flying save to keep out a shot from the dangerous Dur\u00e1n. The 24-year-old\u2019s name will doubtless have been noted by any watching Premier League scouts.<\/p>\n
By way of emphasising his potential Dur\u00e1n reduced the deficit at the outset of the second half after proving far too swift for Dan Burn and beating Ramsdale with a superlative shot.<\/p>\n
Any visiting hopes of a draw on the night receded and then revived as first Sven Botman headed Kieran Trippier\u2019s corner home and then Jafarguliyev scored from the rebound after Ramsdale had performed wonders to parry Marko Jankovic\u2019s penalty awarded after Burn\u2019s handball.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt 2-0 we probably came off the pedal,\u201d said Howe. \u201cIn the second half the game became end to end and we expended too much energy without threatening their goal. We\u2019re disappointed with that but, over two legs, it was a professional job.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eddie Howe adores motivational slogans and the Newcastle manager\u2019s current favourite is: \u201cOne Brain.\u201d The idea is to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":498708,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":["post-498707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=498707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498707\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/498708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=498707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=498707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=498707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}