The Magpies would have been taking a 1-0 lead into the second leg of their last-16 showdown with the five-times winners had it not been for Lamine Yamal’s last-ditch penalty at St James’ Park on Tuesday evening, which secured a 1-1 draw for Hansi Flick’s men which they did not really deserve.
For all their disappointment, Eddie Howe’s side will run out in Barcelona knowing they are very much in the tie at the halfway stage – something they could not say when they went to Manchester City last month in the second leg of their League Cup semi-final trailing 2-0.
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Frontman Harvey Barnes told NUFC TV: “It’s massive. We didn’t really talk about before the game (about) just being level. We wanted to go and win the game and we haven’t.
“But we knew we couldn’t be out of it. We made that mistake in the Carabao, where we felt like we had a big, big mountain to climb and it’s tough from there.
“We’ve played them twice now, so we’ve got a real flavour of what they’re about and we’re bang in the tie, so it’s all about resetting, a big game this weekend (at Chelsea) and then next week, getting our game-plan together and really going after it.”
The Magpies lost 2-1 to Barca on Tyneside in the first game of the group stage in September, but caused them problems on a sustained basis this time around.
They finally got their reward with four minutes of normal time remaining when Barnes fired home from substitute Jacob Murphy’s cross, to the delight of the home supporters among a crowd of 52,103.
However, Malick Thiaw’s foul on substitute Dani Olmo as the clocked ticked into the fifth minute of added time allowed Yamal to rescue the visitors and sent them into the return as favourites.
Asked if it felt like a defeat, Barnes said: “I wouldn’t say a defeat, it’s just a kick in the teeth because I thought not just the result, but the performance deserved better.
“For the way we played, we deserved to be going there next week with a 1-0 lead. We haven’t, that’s football and you’ve got to quickly forget about that, reset and go there with a mindset of going there next week, winning and getting through the tie.”