Toon stars were left to ponder what might have been after coming so close against Barcelona
Lewis Hall of Newcastle United
Lewis Hall shows his frustration at the final whistle against Barcelona(Image: Getty Images)
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Lewis Hall admitted that it was like a morgue in Newcastle United's dressing room in the immediate aftermath of Barcelona.
As things stand, Newcastle's season feels like it is on a knife-edge with Barca firm favourites to complete the job at the Nou Camp next week and the Magpies heading to Chelsea on Saturday night knowing that nothing short of a win will propel them back into the race for Europe via the Premier League.
Having marked Lamine Yamal out the game against the La Liga giants, it was little wonder that Hall was down in the dumps after the1 1-1 draw against Hansi Flick's side.
He said: "If you went in our changing room at the end of the game you would have thought that we'd lost the game by how quiet it was.
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"I said before, it's 1-1, all to play for. Obviously it is going to be tough to go there and get a result, but I feel like with our team, our squad, if anyone could do it, we could."
Newcastle conceded after earning a well deserved lead on 86 minutes thanks to Harvey Barnes and Newcastle's game management was questioned by some fans. Hall reflected: "I think whenever we're on a high we want to keep going, want to keep pushing, and I think that shows a lot about our mentality.
"I think sometimes in these moments it's easy to get carried away and I guess there's an argument for maybe we did at the end there trying to push for another goal but I don't think it was necessarily the best idea, but, what can we do?
"It would have been even better if we could have got the win, but it is what it is and we've just got to go to the next game and yeah, hopefully we can get a result there."
For all that Newcastle's game against Barca was deemed a near miss, Anthony Elanga and William Osula were guilty of squandering big openings in both halves.
Hall said: I feel like we could have got the timing a little bit better at times but yeah, I think we can look back at the game and we can see how we can improve and do that when we play them away."
Hall now heads to his former club Chelsea looking for a big result but Newcastle have now twice had the audacity to take the lead against both Man City and Barca and not came away with a win.
Hall feels that Newcastle are a team that are capable of a result against the big boys and said: "I think anyone who plays against us know that that's what we want to do and I thought we did it really well today and I felt like our energy levels and fitness levels carried on throughout the whole 90 minutes.
"And yeah, like I said, I think we deserve more from the game really."
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