Newcastle 4-1 PSG: Toon in dreamland as local lads Dan Burn and Sean Longstaff score in demolition of European giants in first Champions League match at St James’ Park for 20 years

• Almiron scored Newcastle’s first goal in the Champions League in 20 years
• Eddie Howe’s men dominated PSG from the start and never let off 
• CLICK HERE to listen to the latest episode of Mail Sport’s ‘It’s All Kicking Off’ 

In time it may well be that nights like this one at St James’ Park come to feel like the norm. But we are not there yet. Newcastle remain very much in the foothills of what they hope will be a journey to the top of Europe’s football mountain.

So this did not feel like the norm. Not at all. This fast and furious dismantling of PSG felt utterly fantastical and magical and wonderful. It felt like a special night and that’s because it was.

This was a night to keep your ticket, buy a match programme and maybe take a photo of the scoreboard on the way out. Newcastle United 4 Paris Saint-Germain 1. It was a victory by three goals but for an hour it felt like men against boys and the little ones were the ones in dark blue.

Newcastle, so limp and feeble in drawing their opening Group F game 0-0 at AC Milan, were a combination of ferocious energy, emotion and cleverness here. They were too hungry for the French team. They were too quick. More importantly, they were too good.

Miguel Almiron scored the first for Eddie Howe’s team just after the quarter of an hour mark. The others, between that and Fabian Schar’s late stunner, came from Geordies — Dan Burn and Sean Longstaff. Did that matter? On this occasion, it felt as though it did. Both players have suffered hard times and rejection on the way to their place on this stage — en route to a part in one of Newcastle’s greatest ever nights — and here, to treasure for ever more, was something they will never be expected to forget.

Sean Longstaff scored Newcastle’s third goal in an extraordinary night at St James’ Park

Fellow local lad Dan Burn scored the second goal as Newcastle beat PSG 4-1

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Yes, this was only a group game. Yes, qualification will still be hard earned from here. But this was not really about that. 

This was an arrival, a feeling of long overdue belonging and though Lucas Hernandez scored a goal from nowhere for PSG with half an hour left, a proper comeback never looked likely.

PSG, it just be said, were rank. Kylian Mbappe was never in the game. On the touchline, coach Luis Enrique looked as lost and helpless in the maelstrom as every single one of his players.

Such was the ferocity of Newcastle’s early play that the French team struggled to cope. One question, though. 

What else did Enrique and his players expect? Twenty years is a long time to wait for a return to serious European football and the way Newcastle played for the opening half an hour spoke of pent-up emotion and energy.

Within the first minute, the home crowd were on their feet to acclaim a tackle by Anthony Gordon. By the 20th minute, Bruno Guimaraes and Burn were pumping their supporters up having made consecutive tackles by the touchline. 

One wondered at the time how long it could last. Such adrenaline. Such commitment to the game.

Kylian Mbappe was mostly a spectator and never got into the game on Wednesday night

Eddie Howe got ever tactical decision spot on as his side hammered PSG

It brought Newcastle a goal, though, and that was what mattered. Before half-time there was to be a second.

PSG — not in their best form this season in Ligue 1 — had the first chance as Ousmane Dembele volleyed a good chance wide from a Mbappe cross. But that was all they mustered in a first half that belonged entirely to Howe’s team.

In Milan a fortnight ago, Newcastle had looked cowed and unassured. The 0-0 draw they came home with flattered them. Here, it was different. Newcastle were not only quicker and faster and more forthright. They were also much the better team with the ball. Theirs was not a lead earned on the back of energy alone.

Having threatened sporadically early on, Newcastle took that lead in the 17th minute. It was a goal that had an error at its heart — as Marquinhos passed the ball from his own penalty area straight to Guimaraes. But Newcastle were clinical from that point on.

The Brazilian headed the ball to Alexander Isak, who saw his low shot saved well by Gianluigi Donnarumma. That could well have been the end of it but when the ball ran free to Almiron, he had the presence of mind to open his body and return it with his left instep across goal and into the far corner. 

As Almiron celebrated wildly by the corner flag, Howe and his assistant Jason Tindall were rather calmer. It was clear that, for them, this had merely been the sight of a plan coming together.

Miguel Almiron scored Newcastle’s first goal in the Champions League in 20 years

The Newcastle midfielder was a constant thorn in PSG’s side throughout the match

PSG looked rattled and composure was a long time returning. Guimaraes was the best player on the field at this point with Longstaff not far behind. In the key central areas, the French team just could not get a foothold.

In the 39th minute, Newcastle scored again — this time it was a free-kick into the PSG area that caused the problem as Donnarumma was forced to save from his own defender, Achraf Hakimi.

The ball ran loose to Guimaraes whose low shot was saved but when he then delivered a chip to the far post, Burn rose to head towards goal. Donnarumma did his best to claw the ball away but after an interminable VAR check the goal was given.

PSG had been wretched in the first half — Mbappe utterly invisible, carrying the look of a man whose head and maybe even heart was elsewhere.

Within five minutes of the second half starting, Newcastle were three goals up and threatening to run away with things. This time the goal came from the right foot of Longstaff, driving low beneath the increasingly exposed Donnarumma at the Gallowgate End.

An electric atmosphere greeted the teams at St James’ Park in front of a raucous crowd

The clash with PSG was Newcastle’s first home game in the Champions League in 20 years

PSG looked finished. They looked like a team that had offered little and had no appetite for recovery. But, suddenly and out of nowhere, they gained a slight foothold.

A chipped pass forward from Zaire-Emery found left back Lucas Hernandez breaking off his man and a glancing header was enough to beat Nick Pope down to his left side. It was a goal they had neither deserved or threatened. But with more than half an hour still to play, it provided Newcastle with something to think about at least.

Dembele ran freely on to a long pass down the right in the 68th minute and, with Burn left in his wake, he did have a chance to work Pope. His shot, though, was mis-hit wide of the near post.

That was the end of the French threat and the final word went to Newcastle. This was Schar’s eleventh goal in five years at Newcastle but it’s unlikely he will ever score one similar. 

A right foot shot from 25 yards in to the top corner in the first minute of added time. A rocket from a centre half. It pretty much summed up the night.

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