The last five games of this Premier League season will be so key to Newcastle United’s long-term and immediate future as we bid for a return to the Champions League.
It’s still all to play for with Nottingham Forest, Man City, Chelsea and Aston Villa fighting for effectively the final three spots in the table with Arsenal and Liverpool pretty much secured as a top two.
The financial gain of qualifying for the tournament would be massive for the likes of Forest, Villa and ourselves with a prize pot of around £60-£70m dished out to those in the competition.
Neville says Newcastle are ‘under pressure’ to get top five
Having narrowly avoided a points deduction at the beginning of this season, we really do need every penny we can get a hold of to aid our PSR position and ensure we aren’t being forced to sell quality players.
Eddie Howe will also be expecting reinforcements this summer having not signed any key first-team players in the last three windows, and that £60-£70m bonus – over double the £29.8m we received for competing last season – would be massive in that.
As Neville claims on his podcast, this money for qualification has become so ‘huge’ for teams like us and Villa who need it to continue building while Chelsea and City can seemingly spend and spend without fear of breaking regulations.
It’s a really troubling sign of where football is headed and unless we can get back to winning ways on Saturday we’ll be in danger of missing out on that key prize pot.
On his podcast, Neville said:
“The Champions League has always been big but because of PSR now and the financial position that a lot of these clubs find themselves in, we know that [Aston] Villa, Newcastle and other clubs are under pressure with this £60m, £70m Champions League pot that comes their way. It’s become huge. It’s incredible.
“It’s sad in some ways this desperation to get in there and have to get in there for some of the clubs, but I think a lot of them are dependent upon it. It’s unthinkable that Man City wouldn’t be in the Champions League. I think they will get in there, but then you think of Newcastle and how well they have done; Chelsea and the money they have spent to get in there; and Nottingham Forest, who looked like they were clear a week or two ago.”
Newcastle’s Premier League run in
It’s amazing how quickly things can change in football – just five days ago we were coming off the back of five straight wins in the league and scoring for fun, but a disjointed and tired performance against Villa at the weekend has supporters feeling very nervous.
With results not going our way this game week, the five-point gap we held over sixth place has now been shortened to just two, and with Villa playing Man City tonight we will drop to fifth regardless of the result.
The key thing, however, is that it is all in our hands still with three of our five remaining games to be played at home against Ipswich, Chelsea and Everton.
A win in those three – which should be achievable – and a result away to Brighton or Arsenal should just about be enough to make a top five finish, but as ever you can never be sure about these things and it wouldn’t be a surprise to see both City and Villa to win their remaining games after tonight’s fixture.
Add Comment