Newcastle v Barcelona in Champions League: The cult of Tino Asprilla

These were the nights Asprilla came alive.

Indeed, it did not feel a coincidence that the striker scored as many goals (nine) for Newcastle in 11 European games as he did in 48 Premier League fixtures.

Yet Asprilla’s top-flight debut was one to remember following his £6.7m move from Parma in February 1996.

The new signing was not scheduled to play so soon after touching down in the snow in a fur coat a few days previously.

He even helped himself to a glass of red wine with his pre-match meal before the game against Middlesbrough.

But Kevin Keegan, who was Newcastle’s manager at the time, felt moved to throw on his record signing after watching his side go 1-0 down at the Riverside.

Asprilla duly set up Steve Watson’s equaliser and the maverick’s rubber legs helped turn the game on its head as the league leaders ran out 2-1 winners.

“As soon as he came in, he made the difference,” Albert said. “Only the great players can do something like this.”

It gave Keegan food for thought at a critical juncture of the title race.

Newcastle had won seven of their eight previous top-flight fixtures, but Keegan was privately concerned that his side were becoming a little predictable.

So the Newcastle manager tweaked his starting line-up to accommodate Asprilla.

Gillespie recalled how the “balance of the team changed” as the Northern Irishman dropped out and Peter Beardsley moved over to the right.

“Going from the 4-4-2 we played, Peter was not a winger,” he said. “Peter was not going to do what I did and go down the line and get crosses in for the likes of Les [Ferdinand] in the middle.

“But it was probably easy to drop me. I was the youngest player in the squad and I wasn’t one to go knocking on doors and being confrontational with managers.”

Gillespie, however, made it clear that Newcastle had signed “two great players” in Asprilla and fellow mid-season arrival David Batty, and he instead gave Manchester United “credit for the way they came back with that run”.

The pair became easy targets for outsiders after Newcastle went on to lose out on the title to Manchester United, who won 13 of their final 15 league games.

But Keegan felt it was “scandalous” to blame Batty and Asprilla and instead pointed to a number of key players losing form.