Newcastle gain UEFA Cup place

Liverpool 1 Newcastle 1

Michael Owen’s 19th goal of the season sent Liverpool fans home happy while Newcastle’s Toon Army were left to celebrate qualification for the UEFA Cup.

They had produced a resolute display to make up for their exit from this season’s UEFA Cup semi-finals and then the midweek capitulation at Southampton that allowed Liverpool to grab the final Champions League spot.

Newcastle led early on through a Shola Ameobi strike, but Owen’s clinical finish with 24 minutes left left everything on a knife-edge.

But just when the critics believed Newcastle’s courage and desire had escaped them, they flung a defensive wall around their goal and grabbed something from a season that had promised so much and threatened to end leaving them empty-handed.

Liverpool produced the decent performance that boss Gerard Houllier wanted and can go away for the summer dreaming of playing among Europe’s elite again.

They will leave behind them a club in ferment over its future – be it with Steve Morgan or the Thai Prime Minister’s cash.

But that is for the future. For Liverpool this was a sunshine celebration of achieving Champions League qualification.

Houllier, after his passionate defence of his record following shareholder Steve Morgan’s midweek attack, fielded the side that won so well at Birmingham last weekend.

And he was able to give the last game of the season an emotional twist by using academy youngster Paul Harrison as his second choice keeper because Patrice Luzi injured an ankle in training on Friday.

The youngster got a fine welcome from the Kop, aware that the teenager’s father died at Hillsborough 15 years ago.

It was some turnaround for Harrison, who a few months back had been told he was to be released only for Liverpool to have a change of heart and give him another one-year contract.

Liverpool started with composure and neat passing but the nearest they got early on was when Owen just failed to get onto the end of an Emile Heskey flick-on.

But Newcastle started to flow through midfield with Gary Speed and Lee Bowyer instrumental in some promising moves. But Jerzy Dudek was still not really tested, and it was Shay Given who had to make the first genuine save of the game when he fielder a 25-yard rising drive from Dietmar Hamann.

Liverpool’s early attacks were sporadic and lacking any real cutting edge, and it was Newcastle who found themselves ahead on 25 minutes.

Bowyer advanced through the middle and Liverpool were not helped by Hamann and Sami Hyypia both slipping over, leaving space for Ameobi to exploit as he peeled off into space on the left to take Bowyer’s pass and glide home an angled shot inside the far post.

Bowyer and Speed started to dominate midfield and although they lost Ameobi with an ankle injury on 40 minutes – Craig Bellamy making his comeback after another spell out with a hamstring problem – Newcastle got to the break feeling increasingly confident they would achieve their goal.

Liverpool’s own urgency improved in the second period. Heskey missed a sitter created by Gerrard, who then stabbed wide before setting up Owen for a close-range effort.

But Newcastle should have made it two on 54 minutes when Bowyer’s long ball to beyond the far post was headed back by Alan Shearer for Darren Ambrose, but Hyypia managed to hook it off the line as he ran towards his own goal.

The atmosphere was becoming much sharper as Liverpool battled back for an equaliser. It almost spilled over when Kewell twisted in the box and went down under a challenge from Ambrose, which referee Mike Riley decided was not a penalty.

As the two players scrambled to their feet, words and pushes were exchanged and the official had to pull the pair apart and dish out a warning.

But then Liverpool then did get the goal their second-half vibrancy deserved, and it was a peach.

In the 66th minute Gerrard angled a ball into the box from the right that deceived Titus Bramble and fell perfectly for Owen to run onto and with one movement send it skimming away from Given’s despairing dive.

Newcastle hung on, grabbed the point they needed and both sides were able to go on parades around the pitch, throwing shirts to fans and everybody was happy.