On a chilly, fun, boisterous night in Paris, with the Champions League mega-table scrolling away in the background throughout a breathless 90 minutes, Newcastle produced a fine away performance at the home of the European champions.

A 1-1 draw means Eddie Howe’s team will now enter the knockout phase in February, as had always seemed likely. Paris Saint-Germain will now join them there after some late score-ticker malarkey sent the reigning champions into the playoffs.

Howe will take huge heart from this performance, as a weakened team recovered from a start that suggested the ceiling might be about to fall in. As for PSG, the rest of Europe will look at this team with a little less fear of the furious full-court press that marked last season’s post-Christmas run. Newcastle were compact, powerful in the challenge, and really could have won this game in the second half.

Paris had been a lovely deep languid grey all afternoon, the only city that looks better in drab, sad January light. By kick-off the Parc des Princes was the usual inferno of choreographed noise. And this was a confusingly murky final group phase game, neither fully alive nor fully dead.

Both teams...