But Howe will spend the next 48 hours doing everything in his power to ensure the Magpies are as focused as possible on the trip to Stamford Bridge, with Newcastle's boss desperate to keep the Premier League season alive.
Newcastle head for the Nou Camp next week still very much in their Champions League round of 16 tie despite Lamine Yamal's 95th minute equaliser in the first leg at St James' Park on Tuesday.
But Howe says Newcastle can't afford to take their eye off the ball in the league, with the Magpies in desperate need of a strong end to the season as they look to keep their hopes of playing European football next term alive.
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Chelsea were in also in Champions League action this week, with Liam Rosenior's side on the receiving end of a heavy defeat to PSG and now facing likely exit unless they can mount a brilliant comeback in next week's second leg at Stamford Bridge.
As difficult as he admits it will be, Howe wants his players fully focused on Saturday evening's game in the capital.
He said: “Well, I think that’s the challenge for us. Is it going to be easy? Probably not for the players because think naturally they’ll have half an eye on next week.
“They’re human beings, that will be the case. But we’ve got to try to make sure that the focus is firmly on Chelsea first. It’s a hard enough game as it is without not being being 100 per cent committed and focused on the details of that game.
“That’s my job to try to make that clear to the players, and we need to back-up the performance. We can’t let it slide.
"There was so much good in our performance, so much of us at our best. We need to have more of that on a consistent basis."
In what has been a hugely frustrating season, Tuesday's display against Barcelona was a reminder of what Newcastle are capable of.
Howe said: "It's really important because there's no better confidence builder that underlines what you're doing than the performance on the pitch.
"That tells you everything. We showed a lot of quality in all phases of our game.
"It hasn't always been the case this season, it's been a really challenging campaign with a lot of ups and downs, highlighted [against Barcelona] really, in amongst all the good there's a down.
"But what we've been really good at is absorbing that and using it for the future. That's another experience we've gone through that we need to use to make us better."
Meanwhile, Rosenior admitted Chelsea shot themselves in the foot after their Champions League hopes were shredded by a late capitulation in the first leg against PSG on Wednesday night.
Chelsea had twice recovered from a goal down and looked like surviving an intriguing match with a draw when, in the 74th minute, Filip Jorgensen’s pass was cut out easily by Bradley Barcola, substitute Khvicha Kvaratskhelia squared it and Vitinha chipped the stranded goalkeeper.
Chelsea fell to bits after that. Kvaratskhelia helped himself to two late goals and there was the unfortunate sight of Pedro Neto manhandling a ball boy to the ground in a struggle for the ball before Enzo Fernandez, the vice-captain, visibly turned on his goalkeeper after another mistake which led to a late disallowed goal.
“A very disappointing result on an evening where for much of the game we were really happy,” said Rosenior. “The last 15 minutes were crazy.
“That’s on me. We need to be better in moments when setbacks and mistakes happen. You need to stay calm in the moment, me included.
“It’s a painful one because for 75 minutes we were in the tie.”
There is likely to be intense scrutiny of Rosenior’s goalkeeping selections after this. Jorgensen was in the team after displacing Robert Sanchez but following this mistake it is hard to see where the manager goes from here.
“Players make mistakes,” said Rosenior. “Filip is not the first to make mistake. In that moment at 2-2 we’re in the ascendency.
“In the top level it’s fine margins. The fifth goal was the most painful one. We didn’t deal with a basic pattern of play, they scored a fifth and made the tie very difficult.”