Lewis Hall admits Newcastle United may have got 'carried away' late on against Barcelona and it cost them a win
Newcastle United were seconds away from sealing a historic win over Barcelona in the Champions League Round of 16 at St James' Park last night before Malick Thiaw conceded a penalty deep in stoppage time.
After taking the lead on 86 minutes, Newcastle looked to build on their momentum to try and add a second goal to take to Spain next week for the second leg.
It felt like the right thing to do at the time, but obviously, in hindsight, it ultimately cost Newcastle the win as Anthony Gordon lost possession and Barcelona broke forward.
Malick Thiaw left out a leg, and Dani Olmo gratefully accepted the invitation to trip over it, with the referee wasting no time in pointing to the spot. Lamine Yamal buried the penalty and sucked all the atmosphere out of St James' Park.
Lewis Hall believes Newcastle may have got carried away at the end of the game
The timing of the Barcelona goal left fans in a very strange mood as they'd just watched the lads put in the performance of the season, only for that last-second gut punch to undo everything.
Speaking to Amazon Prime Video at full-time, Lewis Hall, who was absolutely outstanding all game, admitted that they perhaps got 'carried away' looking for that second goal late on.
"Whenever we're on a high, we want to keep going, want to keep pushing, and I think that shows a lot about our mentality. I think sometimes in these moments it's easy to get carried away, and I guess there's an argument for maybe we did at the end there, trying to push for another goal. But I don't think it was necessarily the best idea, but yeah, what can we do?"
Lewis Hall says the dressing room was very quiet at full-time
Hall went on to admit that the feeling in the dressing room was as if the team had lost.
"I think if you went in our changing room at the end of the game, you would have thought that we'd lost the game by how quiet it was."
The bottom line, though, is that Newcastle didn't lose. So we don't take an advantage with us to Barcelona next week, but we do go in there on an even keel, and that's far better than having to overturn a deficit. We can go there and play our game without having to chase, and that's massive.
