PSG and Newcastle look to in-form wingers Dembele and Gordon in Champions League

A contentious transfer seldom leaves its subject free of residual stress. When Anthony Gordon, the young English winger, left Everton at the beginning of the year, the departure was abrasive.

Supporters of a struggling club rounded on a home-grown player as he set his sights higher, and on a move to Newcastle United and the promise of European football.

Similar obstacles confronted Ousmane Dembele back in August. After six years and many ups and downs at Barcelona, the France winger’s expressed desire to join Paris Saint-Germain was taken badly in Catalonia, where the club believed their patience with Dembele through long periods of injury was being ungratefully remembered.

But all employer-employee relationships in sport tend to be nuanced. Dembele was entitled to point out that Barca had a few months earlier marginalised him from first-team practice during a tense contract negotiation, Gordon to reflect that the environment at Everton in his later days there, even before he became restless, was intimidatingly hostile towards him.

For Gordon and Dembele, dates like tonight’s at the Parc des Princes are why they moved on, and they approach a high-stakes contest feeling as settled in their new clubs as they have ever done.

Newcastle, back in the Champions League this season after two decades away, travel to PSG on a mission, to salvage a campaign that peaked with the 4-1 thrashing of the Parisiens at St James' Park but has fallen away abruptly since. In the toughest pool of the group phase, with Borussia Dortmund currently at its summit, Newcastle find themselves bottom on four points.

With two games left, PSG can hardly feel complacent. At second in the table, their six points are only one more than AC Milan’s, and last