Newcastle United 4-1 PSG has sent shockwaves throughout European football. But as well as a brilliant strategy for dealing with Mbappe and co, the secret to Eddie Howe's success was as much about the team's mentality as it was its tactics.
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00:00 Hello everybody, Adam Cleary, 442 here and I'm sorry I'm late, I'm sorry, I'm sorry
00:07 I'm late.
00:08 Okay, I was at the Porto game, I was away, I just missed it so we're a day behind with
00:11 this one but Newcastle beat PSG 4-1.
00:15 Alright so first of all, these were the teams and from a Newcastle perspective it is nothing
00:22 that you weren't already expecting.
00:24 A new Sven Botten wasn't going to be there so Jamal Laselle came in and other than that
00:27 it's the team that has just been playing.
00:29 Now I, like a number of Newcastle United fans, was slightly concerned about the absence of
00:33 Sven Botten because that defensive unit plays so much better when he is in it for one major
00:38 reason.
00:39 Here in trivia, Fabian Scher, Jamal Laselle and Dan Byrne possess a number of excellent
00:43 qualities as defenders.
00:45 They are strong, they are resolute, they are intelligent, they are experienced, they are
00:48 just good, good, good defenders but one thing they don't possess is pace.
00:54 And the thing is it's not like Sven Botten is absolutely lightning rapid either but he
00:58 is the player that allows that entire back four to push nice and far up the pitch because
01:02 his recovery runs mean that if a team does get in behind he's able to mop that up.
01:07 Laselle's a great defender, I think he gets way too much stick, he's much better than
01:10 people realise but one thing he isn't is particularly quick.
01:13 So I mean obviously given that Newcastle were missing a bit of pace in their back line and
01:17 they were about to play one of the best teams in the world for getting in behind you with
01:21 pace obviously what they were going to do was play a low block.
01:24 They were going to play really, really deep right?
01:27 Haha no said the fast controller, you are wrong.
01:30 You can see here that Newcastle were perfectly comfortable leaving a lot of space in behind,
01:34 their press was really high, if anything they only had a mid block at best which is when
01:37 you sort of congest the middle of the pitch rather than the back end of the pitch.
01:41 So how on earth did that work?
01:43 Alright so this is how the teams both lined up, I've put PSG in red just because it's
01:47 really hard to differentiate between the white and the blue on this so just bear with me.
01:51 It was a 4-2-4 from PSG which is pretty much quite disrespectful.
01:56 There's probably a myriad of reasons why they did this but the main one was that man for
02:00 man in individual battles PSG thought that they were better, miles better than all of
02:06 those Newcastle players.
02:07 And also presumably they saw the absence of Sven Bottmann and assumed that Newcastle would
02:10 sit a bit deeper allowing them to have loads of territory here and basically just making
02:15 it worth having four attackers.
02:16 But the main problem with having these four attackers is you can already see in this area
02:20 of the pitch that PSG are outnumbered.
02:23 They're man for man here but they're two versus three here.
02:26 And that meant that when they were able to break the press and move the ball into the
02:29 middle Newcastle actually had quite a lot of control.
02:31 It was very difficult for the two midfielders to create any sort of chances to help them
02:35 get in behind when they were getting marked and defended by these three players here.
02:40 And what Newcastle did which was incredibly clever and incredibly brave was when any one
02:44 of these players dropped off the front line to try and help out in the middle and help
02:48 to create something the defender just went with them.
02:52 They interchanged quite a lot but how is this for an image?
02:54 Kylian Mbappe dropping off to receive the ball and Jamal Laselle saying "Oh no you don't,
02:59 I'm going to stick skin tight to you."
03:01 And the reason this is so brave by Newcastle is you can already see here if one of your
03:05 players drops off that front line and your defender is determined to man mark them and
03:09 go with them you leave huge amounts of space for other players to get into.
03:14 So it's down to the other players who are sticking in their position to recognise that
03:18 and match any runs that go into that space and here in Trippier to his credit was brilliant
03:23 at that.
03:24 But the really clever thing about Newcastle's approach was in these front six players here
03:27 because Newcastle like to press with their three and then sort of with two behind and
03:30 usually Bruno Guimaraes sort of floating around and only pressing up where he needs to be
03:34 but instead for this game they actually pressed a lot more like a flat unit of five.
03:40 Now when you look at PSG and what would have been their build up phase here they have both
03:43 the centre midfielders dropping back to get involved and then the back four and then the
03:46 goalkeeper as well giving you loads of different passing angles and opportunities.
03:51 Now what Newcastle normally like to do is treat the edge of the pitch like an extra
03:55 defender so they press quite narrowly initially to try and force the ball out to the full
04:00 backs and then that's when they trigger so effectively penning players into these areas.
04:05 But the slight problem with doing this against PSG is that these two players are Dembele
04:10 and Mbappe so if you're constantly forcing the ball wide you're not always going to be
04:14 able to stop the obvious pass which is down into this channel here effectively leaving
04:18 them one on one with the full back.
04:20 You need to avoid that.
04:21 So instead Newcastle would press really wide starting from the outside of the pitch and
04:25 then when it went into the two central defenders who they perceived to be the weaker on the
04:30 ball that would then trigger the rest of the press.
04:32 And you saw this perfectly in the first goal even though it does kind of come off a bit
04:36 of a mistake from PSG.
04:37 Newcastle aren't even set to properly press the ball should go into the middle but instead
04:41 for whatever reason they play it back to the defence and Newcastle are then on them in
04:45 this shape.
04:46 They've stopped the ball going up the field down the flank instead they've forced them
04:49 back and into the centre then all of a sudden they've got more players around them than
04:53 PSG can deal with.
04:55 They try to play a really risky pass out of defence.
04:58 It's intercepted, comes to Isaac and Almiron buries the rebound.
05:02 Like you'll know from watching Newcastle United over the last 12 months when was the last
05:05 time you saw Bruno pressing that high up the pitch to try and win the ball back.
05:09 He is normally the 6th, he is a line deeper than everybody else.
05:12 He's supposed to be mopping it up when they get through but here he is as far advanced
05:16 as Longstaff, as Gordon, as Tonali.
05:18 He is one of a flat five.
05:20 Now the thing is that's really clever isn't it?
05:22 That's Eddie Howe and his coaching team sitting down with the players and with each other
05:25 and working out how they can adapt Newcastle's existing system to best suit playing against
05:30 PSG and it's worked really, really well.
05:32 So on the one hand you want to look at that victory as a really good tactical triumph
05:36 for Eddie Howe but there's something way more important than any of that.
05:41 I know this is a weird thing to keep saying for a YouTube channel that is effectively
05:44 just talking about tactics all the time but tactics only get you so far.
05:49 They give you the best possible chance of winning a game of football.
05:52 They don't automatically win you a game of football.
05:55 So Eddie Howe got it spot on here.
05:57 He gave Newcastle the best possible chance of beating PSG but given how good they are
06:02 that guaranteed them nothing.
06:05 What got them this win and what got them such an emphatic win at that was just their, like
06:10 I want to say like philosophy or their ethos or their approach or just something like that
06:14 but it's not that.
06:16 It's just them.
06:18 In his relatively short time at the club Eddie Howe has built this team into a group of players
06:23 into a unit who buy into a particular way of playing.
06:27 It's written all over the training ground.
06:29 Intensity is our identity.
06:31 They train as they play.
06:33 They give absolutely everything.
06:34 And it sounds really cheesy and cliched and if you're a fan of another club I understand
06:38 why you'd roll your eyes at it.
06:39 But the Newcastle players come out so many times after they've won big home games and
06:44 say we fed off the crowd.
06:46 Like we used their energy to give us an extra 5, 10, 15% and that's what made the difference.
06:52 And what will be so pleasing to Eddie Howe and should be so pleasing to Newcastle fans
06:56 en masse is that there is an example of this intensity in all four of the goals.
07:01 For the first one they want to press as a unit.
07:04 They want to shut down that space and win the ball back.
07:06 For the second Dan Byrne wants to win that header way more than the defender does.
07:11 Sean Longstaff wants to make that run into the box to try and create a chance.
07:15 And even at 3-1 up with virtually no time left Fabian Scherr still wants to follow players
07:21 in the middle of the pitch to try and win the ball back if they take a bad touch.
07:25 And from there he's just got the drive and the self-belief to think, "Do you know what?
07:30 I'm just going to score the best goal you've ever seen here."
07:32 And I get why that sounds stupid.
07:33 Like surely every club wants to feed off their home crowd and every club wants to try and
07:37 outwork the opposition and run really hard.
07:40 But it's just, this isn't part of how Newcastle play.
07:43 It's not an element of their approach.
07:46 It is their approach.
07:47 It is the way they play.
07:49 And there's another really cheesy saying that Eddie Howe apparently likes and it's, "Hard
07:52 work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard."
07:55 And yeah, it's incredibly lame but can you think of a better description of Newcastle
07:59 United full PSG 1 in the world?
08:02 Now this entire team is littered, littered with players whose stories should never have
08:07 ended up in this game of football.
08:09 Like Miguel Almiron and Sean Longstaff were both in the starting 11 for the 2-1 defeat
08:14 to Wolves, the now infamous lowest point of being a Newcastle fan right before the takeover
08:19 came in when they were heading for a dead cert relegation, another uninspiring defeat
08:24 that couldn't string two passes together.
08:25 They were barely scoring goals.
08:27 They were in that starting 11 and they both scored against PSG in the Champions League.
08:34 Fabian Schär and Jacob Murphy, who combined for the fourth goal, were both on the bench
08:38 that day.
08:39 Like Schär couldn't get in the team ahead of Kieran Clarke and Murphy was having loan
08:43 after loan to Championship sides and not really impressing anyone in the process.
08:47 Jamal Lassells was Newcastle United's captain in the Championship.
08:51 He had the armband on when they couldn't beat Reading and Sheffield Wednesday and Ipswich
08:57 and no disrespect to any of those clubs, but players with that kind of thing on their CV
09:02 don't then captain teams in the Champions League and put in a borderline man of the
09:06 match performance marking Kylian Mbappe.
09:09 It just doesn't happen.
09:12 The best one though by a mile and if you're a Newcastle fan you will remember this.
09:15 It's from that first transfer window after Eddie Howe came in.
09:19 Remember all the meme accounts?
09:20 Remember the big joke they had?
09:21 It was like, "Oh, Geordie's thought they were going to buy Mbappe and instead they've got
09:25 Dan Byrne, ah ha ha ha ha ha."
09:28 That one's aged like milk, hasn't it?
09:30 And that's really what Eddie Howe's done at Newcastle.
09:32 He's taken so many players who allegedly aren't anywhere near this level and if we're being
09:37 completely truthful, purely in terms of talent, aren't anywhere near this level and he has
09:42 worked with them and he has coached them and he has said, "Look, if we apply ourselves
09:45 and we play the right way as a team and we bring a level of intensity that these other
09:50 teams won't bring, that will make up for this alleged gap in talent.
09:55 They won't be able to live with what you're doing."
09:57 Like this is the best example of all of this, by the way.
10:00 Think about the level Dembele's allegedly supposed to be at and the level LaSalle's
10:04 is allegedly supposed to be at.
10:05 Dembele is faster than he is.
10:07 He's got more experience in the Champions League than LaSalle's does and yet from here,
10:12 LaSalle's is able to recover this situation and put a tackle in.
10:15 How?
10:17 Because LaSalle's is more determined to stop that being a goal than Dembele is to actually
10:23 score it.
10:24 The genius of what Eddie Howe's done is not in how Newcastle set up.
10:27 It's not in their formation.
10:28 It's not in how they press.
10:29 It's that he's managed to unite an entire group of players of varying levels of ability
10:35 behind this idea that they can go on and achieve things if they work together and then unite
10:40 that with the entire fan base.
10:43 And what that then gives you is a group of really talented footballers who've all bought
10:46 in.
10:47 They're all singing from the same heme sheet.
10:48 They're all working really hard for each other and a full staging behind them that will push
10:53 them on to those extra just tiny little margins.
10:56 Give them that extra five or 10%.
10:58 And if you're just a little bit sceptical about whether or not a crowd can actually
11:02 have that sort of impact on a group of professional footballers, just keep in mind that this is
11:07 the Castle United, one of, if not the biggest night in the club's history.
11:12 It's a landmark win.
11:13 It's one of their greatest ever performances and it happened on a night where every single
11:18 person who was there says it is the greatest crowd, the greatest atmosphere they have ever
11:23 been a part of.
11:24 So you Castle United 4 PSG 1 or at least what I made of it watching the full 90 minute replay
11:30 back from a hotel bed in Porto thinking I may have made the biggest mistake of my entire
11:35 life.
11:36 That's fun, isn't it?
11:37 So let us know what you made of it all in the comments below.
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11:59 Rewind it if you didn't see it the first time.
12:01 But until next time, I've been Adam Cleary and I actually did it for one.
12:08 I'll see you soon.