Eddie Howe revealed Newcastle United had achieved their pre-season goal of qualifying for the final 16 of the Champions League, following their play-off overcome Qarabag on Tuesday.
Having led 6-1 from the primary leg in Azerbaijan, Newcastle edged a five-goal thriller at St. James’ Park, with the Magpies popping out 3-2 winners to seal a 9-3 combination victory.
Sandro Tonali and Joelinton’s quickfire targets put Howe’s males two targets in entrance with six minutes gone, just for Camilo Duran to tug one again 5 minutes after the restart.
Newcastle shortly restored their two-goal cushion by way of Sven Botman’s 52nd-minute header earlier than Elvin Cafarquliyev netted one other for the guests, moments after Marko Jankovic had seen his penalty saved by Aaron Ramsdale.
The outcome noticed Newcastle turn into simply the third English workforce to attain 9+ targets in a Champions League knockout-stage tie, after Manchester Metropolis towards Schalke in 2018-19 (10) and Arsenal towards PSV final season (9).
Certainly, the Magpies have now scored extra targets than some other facet within the UEFA’s flagship competitors this season (26), whereas Qarabag’s 30 targets conceded is essentially the most any facet has ever shipped in a single marketing campaign within the competitors.
“This was our goal at the beginning of the season,” Howe instructed Amazon Prime.
“We mentioned varied issues and to get to the knockout phases was there for us, and we felt we may obtain it with the gamers we’ve.
“It’s been a extremely thrilling section of this competitors. We’ve actually loved the completely different challenges.
“The knockout stage will probably be a distinct problem for us on the sharp finish towards elite groups, so we’ve bought every little thing to stay up for.
“However behind my thoughts, we’ve to get our Premier League type again to the place we would like it to be and that can give us the most effective probability to do properly on this competitors as properly.”
UNITED pic.twitter.com/wQYiWR4m7g
— Newcastle United (@NUFC) February 24, 2026
Newcastle’s reward is a last-16 tie with LaLiga giants Barcelona or fellow Premier League facet Chelsea, who each robotically certified for the spherical of 16
Howe’s workforce have already performed Barcelona within the Champions League this season, dropping 2-1 at St. James’ Park of their first league section conflict in 2025-26, with Marcus Rashford’s sensational double sealing the win for the Blaugrana.
Newcastle then drew their top-flight assembly with Chelsea in December, with targets from Reece James and Joao Pedro seeing the Blues come from two targets down to attract 2-2.
“Genuinely, I haven’t given it a second thought. I do know these groups have been there for us,” Howe stated when requested whether or not he would favor to face Barcelona or Chelsea.
“The primary factor was to get by way of and be actually happy with the skilled job we’d achieved.
“I believe in the event you take a look at the rating over the 2 legs, it’s been incredible for the gamers though immediately looks like a little bit of a hole win for us.
“We actually loved the sport towards Barcelona. We had a superb sport towards Chelsea right here as properly. We didn’t win both, so I hope that’s a superb omen for us.”
Howe’s reluctance to select a workforce was shared by Jacob Murphy, who believes Newcastle may beat both facet within the subsequent spherical.
“Anybody,” Murphy, who celebrated his thirty first birthday by being handed the captain’s armband towards Qarabag, stated.
“Truthfully, with this group of gamers, we’ll take anybody on, particularly with knockout soccer, we again ourselves. Deliver on whoever’s to come back.”