Newcastle United are now top of Group F in the Champions League after a 4-1 win over Paris Saint-Germain last night, with the Magpies prompting some’regret’ in the AC Milan camp.
Eddie Howe’s men settled for a goalless draw against the Serie A side in their first encounter on European football’s grandest stage in over 20 years, but they have now established their claim to be the first from the ‘Group of Death’ to make the knockout stages.
After only 16 minutes, Miguel Almiron scored when Bruno Guimaraes’ interception fell to Alexander Isak, whose shot was parried by Gianluigi Donnarumma into the path of the Paraguayan winger, who buried the ball across goal and into the far corner to give Newcastle the lead.
Left-back Dan Burn made it 2-0 when his header crossed the line and was plucked away by Donnarumma. It was subjected to a lengthy VAR assessment to verify Guimaraes hadn’t strayed offside during the build-up, but it was eventually confirmed, much to the delight of St. James’ Park.
Sean Longstaff made it 3-0 only five minutes after the break, linking up with Kieran Trippier before firing a low shot across goal to past the PSG goalkeeper. Lucas Hernandez attempted a comeback with his own header, but Fabian Schar’s wondergoal in added time ended any hope of a late push by the Ligue 1 champions.
Now according to Italian outlet CalcioMercato, Milan manager Stefano Pioli will now be ‘regretting’ the fact his side couldn’t take their chances in their opening match against Howe’s side. The Serie A side had 25 shots on goal with nine of those on target to just the six total shots from the English side, who only managed one on target.
It was another similar story against the fourth team in the group Borussia Dortmund last night, as they created 14 shots in total but still failed to find the back of the net. That’s despite their fantastic start to life in the domestic league where they sit joint-top of the league with Inter having scored 15 goals across their first seven matches.
CalcioMercato also argue that the failure to go out and get an established, experienced striker in the prime of his career has killed any hope of AC Milan making a deep run in the competition, simply because they’re unable to rely on 37-year-old Olivier Giroud to consistently play the full 90 minutes twice a week, noting that their ‘path to European glory is at this point quite complicated’.
They admit that while the defence has held up well, coping with the versatile and relentless attacking nature of Newcastle’s play that cut open PSG, the ‘zero goals in the goals conceded box is equivalent to the goals scored’ and that ‘something more is needed’.
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