Last night’s 2-2 draw at Bayer Leverkusen was a match that summed up so much of our season.
We went missing in patches after a comfortable start, conceded two poor goals, came alive in periods to spark a comeback and could’ve easily won it before conceding late and dropping more points from a winning position.
We’ve already shared our match report from Germany, player ratings and our 4 good, 4 bad from an up and down affair, but Wednesday night also saw two Mags make history, and the team almost put an end to an unwanted record.
The first piece of history saw Anthony Gordon become the first player to match Alan Shearer’s record for the most goal contributions in a single Champions League campaign for Newcastle United.
With a penalty scored and perfect cross to set up our second goal, Gordon is now up to SEVEN goal contributions (five goals and two assists) in our six games so far, matching Shearer’s tally in our 2002/03 Champions League campaign.
Then comes Lewis Miley, who became Newcastle’s youngest ever scored in the Champions League with his towering header last night.
At 19 years and seven months old, the Geordie midfielder takes the crown from Hugo Viana, who netted in that famous 3-2 win at Feyenoord in 2002 aged 19 years and nine months.
Last but not least comes the record we were minutes away from ending at the BayArena, as Newcastle hadn’t won a game from a losing position in the Champions League for 23 years, with the last time being our 2-1 victory over Dinamo Kiev in 2002.
On that day, second half goals from Gary Speed and Alan Shearer helped us come back to win at St James’ Park, and we’d have repeated that feat last night had Alejandro Grimaldo not struck that late equaliser in the 88th minute.
