Howe bemused by 'strange' result as Newcastle hammered by Barcelona

Eddie Howe was left scratching his head after a "strange" result saw Newcastle United dumped out of the Champions League by Barcelona.

Hansi Flick's side hammered their Premier League opponents 7-2 in Wednesday's second leg, securing an 8-3 aggregate triumph and place in the last eight.

But Newcastle looked good value in the first half with the game level at 2-2, thanks to Anthony Elanga's first-half brace.

Lamine Yamal then restored Barca's lead with a penalty on the stroke of half-time, and the LaLiga leaders did not look back from that point on, much to Howe's dismay.

"A tough way to go out. Really strange to try and sum that up because first half, I thought we were excellent," Howe told TNT Sports. 

"Quite a lot of individual errors that have ultimately cost us. In the second half, we were nowhere near as good as in the first. They deserved to go through."

Elanga is only the second player to score twice in a Champions League away match at Camp Nou for an English club, after Dwight Yorke for Manchester United in November 1998.

And the Newcastle winger's performance gave the visitors some confidence, despite Raphinha's opener and Marc Bernal's finish sending them back ahead, with Elanga twice equalising.

But defensive frailties came back to haunt Howe's side as Raphinha got on the scoresheet again, with Robert Lewandowski also twice on target after Fermin Lopez's 51st-minute finish.

Indeed, Newcastle's seven goals conceded is the joint-most ever by an English team in a major European competition match, along with Tottenham in their 7-2 defeat to Bayern Munich in October 2019.

Their five-goal defeat is also the joint-heaviest suffered by an English side in a European Cup/Champions League match, along with Leicester City losing 5-0 to Porto (December 2016) and Tottenham's 7-2 loss against Bayern (October 2019).

However, Howe feels the clash somewhat flipped on its head through Yamal's penalty, which sent Barca in at the break ahead after Kieran Trippier pulled down an onrushing Raphinha.

"Psychologically, that was a tough one for the lads, right on half-time," the Newcastle boss added.

"Very similar to what happened at the end of the game in the first leg. So psychologically, we didn’t seem to recover from that moment."