Newcastle United head coach Eddie Howe has called on the Newcastle fans to recreate the atmosphere that inspired one of the club's greatest-ever nights last time out in the UEFA Champions League in Wednesday night's pivotal match against Borussia Dortmund.
Howe's side have enjoyed a strong start to Group F in their first appearance in the competition since 2002/03, drawing 0-0 in their opening match at AC Milan before the historic 4-1 thumping of reigning French champions Paris Saint-Germain.
Looking back on that night, Howe credited the electric St James' Park crowd and hopes for a similar connection between the supporters and the players on Wednesday.
"I think the beauty of the PSG game looking back was the whole environment created by the supporters," Howe told the club's official website. "I think we need to forget the PSG result, take the confidence from it, but forget it and try and create that atmosphere all over again.
"And for us, [we need to] try and recreate those energy levels and those intensity levels and quality of our play to try and win the game."
'We can't get ahead of ourselves'
While Newcastle have made an encouraging start to what many labelled as this season's "group of death", Howe isn't getting carried away.
"It's another real top test, this group was always going to be that way. You go from AC Milan to PSG to Dortmund, I mean, it’s great to be involved in but as we said at the start of the group, we knew this was [going to be] a really tough examination of us.
"This is a key period in it now, we’ve made a good start but we can’t get ahead of ourselves, we just have to focus on what is ahead of us, and this is a pivotal game in the group I think."
