Newcastle 1-1 Maritimo

The win came a cost, however, after Haten Ben Arfa limped from the pitch clutching his hamstring and Papiss Cisse also left the pitch following a kick on the thigh.

Cisse is likely to be fit for Newcastle's trip to Southampton at the weekend but Ben Arfa looks set to miss at least the next two matches.

As with many of Newcastle's recent games, the Frenchman provided a creative spark that the rest of the team lacked and his presence will be missed.

Four attempts on target for each side tells the story of a largely uninspiring game in which neither side provided much entertainment.

"We've done the job," said Alan Pardew. "In the last 20 minutes Maritimo had nothing to lose and we were poor in that period.

"That was disappointing but I'm delighted we're through. It's very important for us."

It was no surprise that Ben Arfa had a part to play when Alan Pardew's side opened the scoring. Gael Bigirimana won the ball in midfield and laid it off to the Frenchman who found his compatriot Sylvain Marveaux on the edge of the area.

Marveaux raced to the byline and found the net with a sweet strike through the legs of Romain Salin.

Just over 10 minutes later Newcastle thought they had doubled their lead when Cisse hammered home a rebound from Bigirimana's shot.

However the Senegalese was offside. To compound the home side's misery, Ben Arfa limped off clutching his hamstring after a strong tackle by David Simao in the build-up.

Beyond this, Newcastle had little to offer while Maritimo, for their part, were restricted to shots from the distance and didn't have a meaningful effort until two minutes before the break when Simao shot well wide.

The second half produced much of the same although the balance of power shifted subtly towards the visitors.

Danilo Dias went close with a long-range shot which went just wide and Ruben Ferreira forced a save from Tim Krul with a hard swerving shot after 73 minutes.

Then, six minutes later, Fidelis, a second-half substitute, danced through a static Newcastle defence to beat Krul at his near post.

Maritimo went closest to grabbing a winner with Fidelis shooting wide with the last kick of the game.

"It would have been the cherry on top of the cake if that had gone in," said Maritimo coach Pedro Martins.

He praised his side for their "epic" second-half display.

"It was a good performance despite the fact we went out. In general we were equal to Newcastle over the two games even though we didn't achieve our objective."

The Newcastle fans appeared to disagree as the final whistle was met by muted boos and while the performance was not one which will live long in the memory their European adventure continues.

How far can they go? "It's going to be about how strong we are when the next period of the competition comes in February," said Pardew.