Newcastle United marked their return to the UEFA Champions League with a goalless draw against Serie A giants AC Milan.
UEFA Champions League
Result: AC Milan 0-0 Newcastle United
Date: 19 September 2023
Venue: San Siro
Milan recalled Samuel Chukwueze to join Olivier Giroud and Rafael Leao upfront, as one of the three changes that also included Fikayo Tomori and Tommaso Pobega following their embarrassing defeat against rivals Inter Milan in the Serie A on Saturday.Newcastle, meanwhile, brought back Jacob Murphy and Alexander Isak to spearhead the attack alongside Anthony Gordon while Sandro Tonali recovered from injury to face his former side.
Stefano Pioli's charges had a bright start with chance after chance early on as goalkeeper Nick Pope did really well to keep out strikes from Pobega and Giroud in quick succession.
Pope was still the busiest of the shot-stoppers around 19 minutes as he made a great reflex save to parry Theo Hernandez's dipping header.
The Rossoneri continued to enjoy the momentum going forward and they should have been ahead ten minutes before the break after Leao had a clear sight of goal in the box but he tripped over his own feet and Pobega latched onto the loose ball but his shot was cleared off the line.
However, the home side could not maintain their attacking intensity after that and the sides went through the motions and settled for a scoreline first stanza.
The sides still struggled to get going early in the second stanza and on the hour-mark, Pioli made an attacking change as Christian Pulisic replaced Chukwueze.
Eddie Howe also reacted with a double attacking change as he brought on Callum Wilson and Miguel Almiron.
But it only took up until the last 16 minutes for Milan to threaten again as Leao came close with a free header in the box that sailed narrow over the crossbar from a cross by Alessandro Florenzi.
The Rossoneri kept Newcastle in their own half in the dying minutes but they could not create clear-cut chances and they nearly lost all the three points in the tail end of stoppage time after Sean Longstaff forced a save out of substitute goalkeeper Marco Sportiello.
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