By Mark Deeks
March 25 2003

Newcastle United's Champions League came to an end with a 2-0 defeat at home to Barcalona. However, if Newcastle had won, they still wouldn't have progressed due to Inter Milan also winning 2-0. However, I leave you with Mark's opinions. BARCELONA HOME, WEDNEDAY 19TH MARCH.

THE END OF THE CHAMPIONS LEAGUE ROAD.

So there we have it, the end of the champions league road is reached with a 2-0 home defeat to Barcelona. And from some press reports you'd think we had been a failure.

Let's get this game's events out of the way first. We played pretty well. Not outstanding, not ferociously brilliant, but pretty well. There was certainly no outclassing going on, there was certainly no shame.

Bellamy seemed to be on a one man mission to score except he'd left those finishing boots in the dressing room, but in many ways, we were at least their equal, and in patches their better.

But as we all know, at this level then mistakes can cost you dear. Titus Bramble certainly delivered again in the cock up department, but I'm still having trouble being annoyed at him because he is playing excellent 95% of the time, only to be followed by pretty poor for the other 5%. He's young and learning.

Who knows, had Bellamy not hit the post early on, the score could have been very different, but thanks to the result coming through from Germany, it wouldn't have made any difference with regard to our overall qualification.

Looking back on the full campaign, I am left with two general feelings. Firstly, we have achieved so much. We have got further than many gave us the chance of, we won more games than Arsenal did and got as many points as the Gunners in the second stage. At no stage were we shamed, at no stage did we look out of our depth, and every team we met seemed impressed with our qualities, especially of the young lads. They will have learnt greatly from the experience and will return even stronger next year when we seem certain to be back in amongst Europe's elite.

My second overriding feeling is pride. I remain astonished at some of our results, especially those league games immediately following European fixtures. Unbeaten in 21 of these matches is astonishing. I was amongst those who doubted our current squad could maintain another successful league campaign alongside our European adventures. But the boys (I keep reminding you how young the vast majority are) have proved us wrong time and time again.

In a word,"brilliant". I am nowhere near as disappointed at being out as I thought I would be. It's been great. And we're gonna be back next year.

Keep the faith.