How close are Newcastle to a title challenge?

Skills

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Their trajectory since Howes taken over has been like a rocket. Relegation, to top half in half a season to top 4 and European football..

They've obviously got the cash, and European football will let them shop in the top end of the market.

Is next season too early?
 
Skills said:
Their trajectory since Howes taken over has been like a rocket. Relegation, to top half in half a season to top 4 and European football..

They've obviously got the cash, and European football will let them shop in the top end of the market.

Is next season too early?
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If they follow the City model (cooking the books allegedly), then 5 years. Organically, a long time.
 
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It really depends how they spend in the summer. I wouldn’t be surprised if they fell away next year as Howe adapts to a 2 game a week schedule.

It’s a different beast when you can’t give your players a rest, have a couple of days coaching and a couple of days prepping for almost every EPL game.
 
They'll replace Howe before they win a title. He's not fashionable enough and more importantly, they're dreadful to watch.
 
Heinzesight said:
If they follow the City model (cooking the books), then 5 years. Organically, a long time.
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It took city a few seasons just to break into European football - which meant their first few transfer windows they were randomly spending money on whoever wanted to come, rather than players they really wanted.

Newcastle have done it on their first attempt.
 
Strootman's Finger said:
They'll replace Howe before they win a title. He's not fashionable enough and more importantly, they're dreadful to watch.
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This. Newcastle are not nice to watch. They are functional, they run hard, but that's all. They need a whole different caliber of players inorder to compete all season in different competitions
 
As with us, likely the season after next at the absolute earliest.

Also as with us, another top four finish and being competitive in the CL would be a good season for them next year. Especially as they aren't used to competing on multiple fronts at that level.
 
Pexbo said:
It really depends how they spend in the summer. I wouldn’t be surprised if they fell away next year as Howe adapts to a 2 game a week schedule.

It’s a different beast when you can’t give your players a rest, have a couple of days coaching and a couple of days prepping for almost every EPL game.
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Good point.
 
Closer than us? Probably. Maybe. I don't know.
 
It took Mancini 2 years and a half to win it… I think Howe is starting at a much lower point. And it felt City were closer by the 2011 summer when they won the FA Cup. Adding Aguero & Nasri that summer was luxury… They’d already had 2 big windows, specially the 2010/11 season with Touré, Silva, Dzeko (January), Milner, Kolarov… I don’t think N’Castle are at that level yet.

N’Castle has a better squad than City had in 09/10 but not as good as what City had in 11/12... Give it 2 years top they will have assembled the second best team of the league…
 
Skills said:
It took city a few seasons just to break into European football - which meant their first few transfer windows they were randomly spending money on whoever wanted to come, rather than players they really wanted.

Newcastle have done it on their first attempt.
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City finished 5th and thus qualified for the Europa League in 09/10 (they had 67 points, Newcastle can end up with 73 if they beat Chelsea - not much between the two). Considering their takeover happened literally on the last day of the 2008 summer window, they pretty much had one winter and one summer window to qualify for Europe. The exact same as Newcastle.

In 10/11 they qualified for the CL and we all remember 11/12.
 
For a serious title challenge, probably the best part of 5 years. They've done well this season but there's still a long way for them to go - the likes of Murphy, Longstaff and co aren't really good enough for a top 4 team, and they'll have the additional games that come with playing in Europe next season which might stunt their progress.

Even if they spend well this summer, I honestly think they'd do well just to maintain Champions League football next season. Maybe the season after they might have loftier ambitions but it's easier said than done.
 
I think their squad isn't well-suited to a dominant attacking style which is required to challenge City. So they'll need to rebuild a lot to take the next step instead of simply continuing to progress in a linear fashion. It's an interesting conundrum — I think they're more likely to keep the current model and improve on it, which will probably secure them a top-4 spot but won't allow them to challenge; but to challenge they'd need to rethink everything including asking someone like Nagelsmann in... which is an objectively bad extremely risky decision to say the least.
 
They won't be able to spend much this summer, so I'd imagine they'd be happy consolidating a Champions League place next season considering they are ahead of schedule already.

I'd say they are a good 8 years away from genuinely challenging for the title, City are head and shoulders above Newcastle, United will hopefully be more competitive next season, Liverpool and Chelsea will improve.
But that's assuming Newcastle get every decision from here spot on. Any mistakes in the transfer market or trigger happy decisions regarding the manager and they'll be two steps back.
 
What's all this "dreadful to watch"? Games I've seen of Newcastle have been plenty decent and nothing dull about their style.

Def much more entertaining games than anything with City in it, possession versus park the bus snooze fests.

Newcastle could possibly win the title next season if they sign the right players and the other contenders are anything but the 90+ point monsters. I think they'd have more mettle than Arsenal showed in the run in.
 
I don't consider getting top 4 a big achievement this season, but they did reach the cup final so you have to admid they've done well. That said, I will take them seriously if they can reproduce the point tally next season, what I think will be harder not only because of other teams getting better, but also I think it'll be difficult for them to play high intensity football for that long and with other competitions.
I think this season result will make their players believe in this project so might be easier to keep players.
I am looking at Brighton more than Newcastle.
 
What I don't quite get about Newcastle is the narrative peddled by a few journalists I've heard saying they play nice football. I've seen them play a few times, and not once have I thought they were particularly pleasing on the eye. Did I just catch the wrong games?
 
What I will say about them is that they do look like a mentally capable side.
They've recently had a fair amount of justified criticism directed at them in recent months due to the shit-housery tactics they've been adopting and noticeable timewasting but they, and Howe, seem undeterred by those attacks. They do seem to have adapted well to that notion of a 'us against the world' idea.

To me, they do remind me a fair amount of Simeone's A.Madrid and to a lessor extent Jose's Chelsea.

So, with the backing they've got and the clear direction and identity they seem to have adopted, I can really see them challenging within 2 seasons.
 
Get a proper manager in, spend 1billion (through the books, probably 1.5billion actual spend) and they'll be able to push City every 1 year in 3 or 4.
 
Making the transition to a top 4 side isnt that hard. Making the jump to a title challenger amid fixture congestion is the hard thing. They are far off still.
 
Quite far but it depends, they could maybe do an Arse. They need to improve by 20-25 points and not succumb to pressure.
 
Apparently not so close that they're the least bit disappointed about dropping two points that could easily cost them third place. Which is to say, they seem pretty ecstatic about making top four, seeing that as ample reward for now. Nothing wrong or surprising with that, considering where they were not long ago. But it sort of tells you they're still at an early stage of the journey here.
 
This summer window is huge for them. CL football, money. Make the right signings and I see them challenging in no less than three seasons.

Two years of consecutive CL football, the right footballers - is Howe the man to do it?
 
Rooney in Paris said:
What I don't quite get about Newcastle is the narrative peddled by a few journalists I've heard saying they play nice football. I've seen them play a few times, and not once have I thought they were particularly pleasing on the eye. Did I just catch the wrong games?
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No, to me they are like a poor version of Marseille under Deschamps. Effective but painful to watch.
 
I wonder how easy a time they will have with recruiting. Obviously, they will have the cash, but they are not exactly alone in that anymore - especially if Qatar also ends up owning a PL club. There is sometimes talk about Manchester being a tough sell for some nationalities, but surely Newcastle is much worse?
 
A lot will come down to how they invest and who they replace Howe with, but I think a lot of things went their way this year to make them look better than they are, Don't get me wrong, they can be effective and get a result, but they aren't a winning team yet. But no Europe and a half the traditional top 6 having off years certainly benefitted them. But Liverpool, Tottenham and Chelsea could all bounce back next season and send them back done to 6 or 7, especially since they'll have to deal with Europe now.

For me personally I look at that Newcastle team and they are an effective team at grinding out results, but they don't have world class players that will stand out individually. Maybe Guimaraes, but let's be honest, most of us never even heard of him before Newcastle, so we don't really know if he is a standout player that can do the same wherever, he's still just a part of that team to me.

Having said that, they could just splash massive cash and anything is possible.
 
Rooney in Paris said:
What I don't quite get about Newcastle is the narrative peddled by a few journalists I've heard saying they play nice football. I've seen them play a few times, and not once have I thought they were particularly pleasing on the eye. Did I just catch the wrong games?
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I'd say they're a fairly entertaining team to watch - they attack enthusiastically and with verve and pace, if also pretty direct.
 
Pexbo said:
It really depends how they spend in the summer. I wouldn’t be surprised if they fell away next year as Howe adapts to a 2 game a week schedule.

It’s a different beast when you can’t give your players a rest, have a couple of days coaching and a couple of days prepping for almost every EPL game.
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Agree with all this. I also think that the element of surprise will be gone and teams have learned how to better combat and deal with how they play.
 
Champions league for them will prob depend on the group they get drawn obviously. Also depend on how the refs in europe view their shithousery. If they run into the wrong ref can easily see a cardfest with how physical/dirty they can be.
 
Mwooyo said:
This. Newcastle are not nice to watch. They are functional, they run hard, but that's all. They need a whole different caliber of players inorder to compete all season in different competitions
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I don’t think this is correct anymore. There’s been two different Newcastle’s this season really. First half of the season, they were solid, hard to beat and just tried to nick wins. In the later stage of the season, they’ve really played like a top 4 side, dominating smaller sides, having loads of the ball and killing teams off when leading games. They absolutely battered Brighton last week, probably the most any team has this season. Hammered Everton, Spurs and West Ham. They’re a totally different side now to the first half of the season.


However, I think they’ll struggle next season unless they switch up a lot of their team. Not having a full week off will hurt them with their squad. Their starting 11 also isn’t that great, Howe has them playing well above their level, not sure that they’ll sustain it unless they invest.
 
I would be surprised if they get top 4 next year. Leicester just showed what teams will do and they almost got 3 points

If they recruit well, I guess top 6 is still a possibility but not with this shithousery tactics of playing 50 mins every game.
 
Kinda wondering if anyone is close to challenging City, unless things start to unravel there for some reason I can't see. Maybe in 2-3 years things will be different.

The riches of the PL compared to the rest of Europe means that there are at least 6 clubs now in the group behind with lots of means at their disposal. Right now Newcastle are just one of those which means each year it will be tough to qualify for the CL etc. Same for us, though that could change quite a bit if the Qataris buy us, and Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea if they stop being feckwits, Spurs. None are really close to City's level on the pitch right now though.
 
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