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When, on the eve of kick-off, Qarabag’s manager, Gurban Gurbanov, said Newcastle had “a style of play that does not suit us”, there were suggestions he was playing mind games.
Long before half-time it was fully apparent that, if anything, Gurbanov had rather understated things. Had this been a boxing match it would surely have been stopped after a matter of minutes. Qarabag were utterly overwhelmed by the pace of their guests and that of Anthony Gordon in particular. Gordon scored four times, taking his tally in the Champions League this season to 10.
It all ensured that the 1,998 Newcastle fans who had arrived on the banks of the Caspian Sea on a series of indirect flights via cities as far flung as Istanbul and Warsaw had their endurance rewarded by the most convincing of performances from Eddie Howe’s team.
Howe has had a fair share of problems in recent weeks but his players found this flying visit to Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku, and its Tofiq Bahramov Republican Stadium as restorative as a week’s spa break in the sun.
How Newcastle must wish more of their opponents attempted to play out from the back as ineptly as their Eurasian hosts. Not to mention surrender so supinely in the face of their aggressively physical, high-intensity press.
Qarabag have beaten Benfica, Eintracht Frankfurt and FC Copenhagen in the Champions League this season but they simply folded as Newcastle sprinted away with the first leg of this playoff for a place in the last 16.
The 2,529 miles Howe’s squad had travelled was the longest away trip ever made by an English team in the Champions League.
Not that they showed too many signs of jet lag after their six-hour flight from Tyneside. Indeed, the game had barely begun before Dan Burn discovered his inner Beckenbauer and, having stepped elegantly out of defence, supplied Gordon with a beautifully weighted pass.
The England winger, deployed at centre-forward here, with Nick Woltemade in the No 10 role, needed no invitation to lash home his seventh Champions League goal of the season.
Not to be upstaged, Burn’s central defensive partner Malick Thiaw swiftly scored a goal of his own. When Kieran Trippier’s clever corner routine bamboozled Qarabag, Thiaw promptly headed Newcastle’s second goal beyond Mateusz Kochalski.
By now Gordon’s blistering acceleration was petrifying Qarabag but he relied on accuracy to score again from the penalty spot after Matheus Silva handled in the area.
His hat-trick was completed when he dispossessed Kevin Medina before rounding Kochalski.
Then, when Kochalski brought him down in the area, Gordon scored another penalty. That moment apart, Gurbanov’s goalkeeper had played quite well, proving largely responsible for keeping the score in single figures.
Nick Pope had been a spectator until the moment early in the second half when he was arguably beaten rather too easily by Elvin Cafarquliyev’s low, hard and just onside shot. Newcastle’s defence had momentarily lost concentration and, as Qarabag fans celebrated wildly and impressively, Howe looked suitably disgruntled.
Gurbanov had switched his own rearguard to a back five and Qarabag looked considerably more resilient.
Admittedly their cause was almost certainly aided by a raft of visiting substitutions – including Gordon’s withdrawal – as Howe’s thoughts apparently turned to Saturday night’s Premier League match at Manchester City, where the absence of the injured Bruno Guimarães may be more more keenly felt.
Back in Baku, one of Newcastle’s substitutes, Jacob Murphy, scored Newcastle’s sixth after cutting in from the right and watching his curling left-foot shot deflected past Kochalski.
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