Paris Saint-Germain 1-1 Newcastle

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Newcastle missed out on automatic qualification for the knockout rounds of the Champions League but earned a place in the playoffs following a fantastic performance against the 12 men of PSG.

After the 'handball' travesty of two years ago, Newcastle came here with a wrong to right, but more in hope than expectation of a positive result.

And the hope took a major beating inside the first minute, after Barcola handled the ball onto Miley's arm in the box.

It was an even more laughable penalty shout than the one against Livramento two years ago, but amazingly the referee was sent to the monitor and came to the conclusion that Miley had temporarily taken leave of his sense and somehow in less than a split second, elected to deliberately handle the ball.

Penalty given then, but Nick Pope was having none of it, diving to his left to make a brilliant save from Dembele.

Despite a 5-4-1/3-4-3 formation however, we were under the cosh and allowing PSG plenty of space, and Vitinha accepted the invitation in the eighth minute, firing home from outside the box.

A second goal would have spelled curtains, but we hung on, and grew into the game more as the half wore on.

And in first half stoppage time, the returning and colossal Dan Burn rose to head a free kick from deep across goal where Joe Willock arrived perfectly to nod home and level.

The second half saw a very strong performance from Newcastle, and we were fairly unthreatened by the team that pasted Inter 5-0 in last season's final.

As the game grew more stretched, Elanga and Willock were replaced on the wings by Gordon and Barnes, who injected venom and bite into the attack, with Gordon clattered in the box but VAR not interested and Barnes spurning a glorious chance when played in by Gordon.

There was no further late drama and results elsewhere, as predicted, saw failure to win rewarded only with a playoff spot, to be played against either Qarabag or Monaco.

In the playoff we also find teams like tonight's opponents, Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid - confirmation of how proud we should be of our efforts in the tournament so far.

Final word on the referee, who, not content with the penalty for PSG and non-penalty for Gordon, also saw fit to ignore a handball by a PSG defender in their box, a potential stamp on Botman, and most bewilderingly of all gave the worst yellow card decision I have ever seen - booking Elanga for the crime of being fouled.