Eighty-eight minutes had passed and Newcastle fans were already in party mode when Alejandro Grimaldo collected Ibrahim Maza’s pass and concluded a move he had initiated courtesy of a glorious run and dummy.
As the Spain left wing-back’s shot slid beneath Aaron Ramsdale’s body and his Bayer Leverkusen teammates celebrated an arguably deserved equaliser, North Rhine-Westphalia suddenly felt a much colder place for Eddie Howe’s players.
At the end of a night on which their fragility at dead balls resurfaced yet again and they struggled to contain Grimaldo in particular, Newcastle have work to do if they are to extend their latest Champions League adventure into next spring.
Any lingering suggestions that Howe might prioritise the Tyne-Wear Premier League derby at Sunderland on Sunday were debunked when he named his strongest available XI.
Newcastle’s manager had been expecting a tactical technical area duel with Kasper Hjulmand but Bayer Leverkusen’s manager was not here, with the Bundesliga club announcing he was absent for personal reasons.
It left Hjulmand’s assistant, Roger Meijer, to take charge of the team sitting fourth in Germany’s top tier. Meijer must have been extremely content with a first half characterised by much slick, sharp, passing and movement as his pleasingly fluid side constantly interchanged positions.
They were ahead in the 13th minute when Newcastle, not for the first time this season it should be said, got themselves into a terrible tangle at a corner.
When Leverkusen’s captain, Robert Andrich, dodged his supposed marker, Sandro Tonali, he was left free to direct a header goalwards. Its journey took a detour via Bruno Guimarães’s backside and the subsequent deflection left a well-beaten Ramsdale thoroughly deceived. Although Andrich claimed the credit, it was registered as a Guimarães own goal.
Shortly afterwards things very nearly took another wrong turn for Newcastle. Once Patrick Schick met Malik Tillman’s fine through ball and accelerated towards the area a wrong-footed Malick Thiaw was really up against it and ended up felling Schick on the edge of the area.
The referee initially awarded a penalty but downgraded it to a free-kick when a video assistant referee review detected the offence to have occurred fractionally outside the 18-yard box. A relieved Thiaw, meanwhile, was handed a yellow card before watching Leverkusen’s set-piece specialist, Grimaldo, lift the ensuing free-kick over the crossbar.
It proved the cue for Howe’s players to wake up a little but, with their final ball lacking the necessary quality and Nick Woltemade looking unusually nervous on his first return to Germany as a Premier League striker, Newcastle remained vulnerable to Leverkusen counterattacks. Even so the home goalkeeper, Mark Flekken, did extremely well to prevent an equaliser when Grimaldo deflected Tino Livramento’s cross goalwards.
Howe’s problem was that, whenever the hosts broke, his defenders looked bewildered in the face of Schick’s habit of dropping deep and dragging them out of position while leaving Tillman and Ernest Poku free to burst into the box.
With half-time beckoning Thiaw – who, uncharacteristically, was struggling badly – and company had Ramsdale to thank for a tremendous fingertip save from Jarell Quansah, whose advance from the back three and connection with Arthur’s right-wing delivery had proceeded unchecked.
Then five minutes into the second half Leverkusen, or more specifically Flekken, self-destructed. As the goalkeeper prepared to take a goal-kick, he lost concentration and dawdled, permitting Woltemade to not merely close him down but, courtesy of some seriously nifty footwork, dispossess him.
Flekken responded by pushing the Germany striker over and Anthony Gordon made no mistake from the penalty spot. As Gordon celebrated his fifth Champions League goal this season, the mortified keeper pulled the front of his jersey up over his face.
There was to be no hiding place for Flekken, though, and he was very nearly beaten again when Gordon’s shot rebounded back off the inside of a post. Yet if Howe had reason for optimism he could have done without the sight of Joelinton limping off with an apparent groin injury.
It was Lewis Miley, Joelinton’s 19-year-old midfield replacement, though who headed Newcastle into the lead from Gordon’s cross before Grimaldo eased a little of Flekken’s pain by enjoying the final word.
