Howe and Burn rue 'mental lapse' as Newcastle lose in Marseille

Eddie Howe and Dan Burn both attributed Newcastle United's 2-1 defeat in Marseille to the "lapse" at the start of the second half that allowed Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang to score twice.

Newcastle were on course for a fourth straight Champions League win at half-time on Tuesday courtesy of Harvey Barnes' early goal.

The Magpies had not previously lost away from home in the competition after leading at the break, but the match was quickly turned on its head at the start of the second half.

Despite Newcastle taking the kick-off, Aubameyang equalised within 20 seconds of the restart, rounding goalkeeper Nick Pope a long way from goal on the right wing and sweeping in a superb finish.

And the turnaround was complete in the 50th minute as Aubameyang was sharpest to Timothy Weah's low cross, dealing Newcastle a setback from which they could not recover.

"I think the goal straight away, near enough, after half-time changes the whole feeling around the stadium and the game itself," head coach Howe told TNT Sports.

"It was just a lapse of concentration from our perspective, I think.

"Then we didn't react maybe well enough to that, conceded the second, and from there it was difficult."

Defender Burn added: "Mentally, we didn't start the second half as well as we wanted to.

"Obviously Aubameyang's 36 years old, but he's still sharp and can still finish and showed his quality today.

"When you go 2-1 down away from home and you've got to break them down, it's tough. I thought it was a pretty good performance, but key moments cost us.

"I thought we had chances we could have scored and didn't capitalise on, and then obviously two goals, we're very disappointed."

Aubameyang, at 36 years and 160 days, became the fourth-oldest player to score multiple goals in a Champions League match after Cristiano Ronaldo (36yrs 270d), Robert Lewandowski (36yrs 231d) and Edin Dzeko (36yrs 223d).