Can Eddie Howe’s side overcome the La Liga champions in their UEFA Champions League opener? We look ahead to Thursday’s clash with our Newcastle United vs Barcelona prediction and preview.
Newcastle vs Barcelona: The Key Stats
Barcelona overcame Newcastle United in 42.5% of pre-match simulations by the Opta supercomputer.
Newcastle have won just one of their last eight Champions League games (D3 L4).
Raphinha was directly involved in more goals than any other player in this competition last season (21 – 13 goals, eight assists).
Newcastle United welcome Barcelona to St James’ Park on Thursday for their opening fixture of what could be a gruelling Champions League run.
Eddie Howe’s side have the hardest set of fixtures of any Premier League side in the 36-team league phase of this competition, based on an average rating of opponents from Opta’s Power Rankings.
Champions League 2025-26 Fixture Difficulty
Newcastle travel to Champions League holders Paris Saint-Germain and 2023-24 Bundesliga champions Bayer Leverkusen after Barcelona’s visit.
Benfica, Union Saint-Gilloise, PSV, Marseille and Athletic Bilbao are the other sides that left the Magpies with the fifth-toughest set of fixtures overall.
With that tough opening run in mind, Howe may be concerned that his side have won just one of their last eight Champions League games (D3 L4). However, that came in a roaring 4-1 home win against PSG during the 2023-24 group stage in a St James’ Park atmosphere that Newcastle will be desperate to recreate.
They head into this edition without talisman Alexander Isak, who eventually ended his long-winded transfer saga with a British record transfer move to Liverpool. His absence leaves Champions League goals sorely lacking in Howe’s current squad.
New signings Nick Woltemade, Yoanne Wissa and Anthony Elanga could all eventually fill that void, though only three current Newcastle players have scored in this competition. Defenders Dan Burn and Fabian Schär have both found the net, as well as Joelinton.
Woltemade did get off the mark on his Premier League debut, however. The German scored the only goal of Saturday’s 1-0 win over Wolves, which Wissa missed after returning from international duty with a knee issue. Jacob Ramsey is Howe’s only other injured absentee.
Howe may look on enviously at Hansi Flick’s attack after Fermín López, Raphinha and Robert Lewandowski all scored twice in a 6-0 thumping of Valencia in Sunday night’s La Liga clash.
Barcelona 6-0 Valencia
Raphinha was also directly involved in more goals than any other player in UEFA’s top club competition last season (21 – 13 goals, eight assists). The Brazilian has the best assists-per-game ratio of anyone in the competition’s history (0.46 – 12 in 26 appearances), among players to assist 10 or more goals in the Champions League.
On-loan Manchester United forward Marcus Rashford has been directly involved in eight goals in 11 career starts against Newcastle (five goals, three assists). That impressive return includes two goals and two assists in six starts at St James’ Park.
Lamine Yamal missed the Valencia hammering with a groin issue but would make history if he recovers in time for Thursday. His next outing would be his 24th in this competition and see him surpass PSG’s Warren Zaïre-Emery for the most Champions League appearances while aged 18 or under.
Regardless of Yamal’s fitness, a wealth of attacking riches play perfectly into the hands of Flick. He’s been in charge of the two sides with the highest goals-per-game average among managers to have overseen 10 or more Champions League matches – his Bayern Munich team averaged 3.2 between 2019 and 2021, while Barcelona are currently managing 3.1.
Flick must manage any bad memories on English soil, however, after Barcelona were thrashed 4-0 by Liverpool in May 2019. That was their last Champions League visit to England, and it remains one of the competition’s most famous turnarounds after a 4-3 aggregate defeat in the last four.
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Of course, that remarkable comeback came before Flick, with Barcelona then managed by Ernesto Valverde. Last season’s La Liga champions have also only lost consecutive matches against English sides on one occasion previously, against Arsenal in 2011 and Chelsea in 2012.
In terms of the rest of Flick’s team news, Frenkie de Jong faces a race to fitness after returning from international duty injured. Gavi, Alejandro Balde and Marc-André ter Stegen are also out for the La Liga champions.
Newcastle vs Barcelona Head-to-Head
Newcastle won their first competitive meeting against Barcelona 3-2 way back in September 1997, but have since lost their last three.
This will be the fifth clash between these two sides, though the first since March 2003. Barcelona triumphed 2-0 in that meeting at St James’ Park thanks to goals from Patrick Kluivert and Thiago Motta.
Barcelona have also won 12 of their last 16 Champions League games against English opposition (D2 L2), scoring 2.1 goals-per-game on average during that run.
However, Newcastle have won six of their 11 encounters against Spanish opposition in major European competition, including the last three in a row.
Newcastle vs Barcelona Prediction
The Opta supercomputer favoured an away win as Barcelona triumphed in 42.5% of its 10,000 pre-match simulations.
Newcastle came out on top in 32.6% of the data-led sims, while the draw was rated at 24.9%.
Newcastle vs Barcelona Prediction
Newcastle vs Barcelona Predicted Lineups
Newcastle United: Nick Pope, Kieran Trippier, Fabian Schär, Dan Burn, Tino Livramento, Bruno Guimarães, Sandro Tonali, Joelinton, Jacob Murphy, Harvey Barnes, Nick Woltemade.
Head coach: Eddie Howe
Barcelona: Joan García, Jules Koundé, Eric García, Pau Cubarsí, Gerard Martín, Pedri, Marc Casadó, Raphinha, Fermín López, Marcus Rashford, Robert Lewandowski.
Head coach: Hansi Flick
Opta Power Rankings
The Opta Power Rankings are a global team ranking system. They assign an ability score to over 10,000 domestic football teams. This score is on a scale between zero and 100, where zero is the worst-ranked team in the world and 100 is the best team in the world.
Ahead of kick-off at St James’ Park on Thursday night, here is the Opta Power Ranking for both sides.
UEFA Champions League Stats Opta
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