Strange that these Newcastle United fans wouldn’t see qualifying again for Champions League as success | OneFootball

With this October 2023 international break we wanted to get a Newcastle United fan snapshot of opinion.

The idea is to get a range of views of what various Mag writers / NUFC fans think about what has happened / is happening at Newcastle United.

So we have sent various regular / irregular contributors sets of questions, including some the same as others, some different.

Next up is Paul Patterson:

What would you now see as success this season?

Keeping up the forward momentum.

It’s strange, we could miss out on a cup final, finish a place lower in 5th and yet still requalify for the Champions League and some would see that as a backward step. Not me. I’d be more than happy with a cup run wherever it ends up, 5th place and to have scared a few teams in the Champions League.

Who would have thought any of that possible two years ago.

IMAGO/Sportimage

Predict the top eight in the Premier League (in order).

Manchester City Arsenal Liverpool

Newcastle United Tottenham Hotspur

Aston Villa Brighton Manchester United

Manchester City are winning it, Arsenal will be second, after that, third downwards is anyone’s. Spurs could fade, as could Liverpool. Manchester United’s finish depends on what they do with their manager. Put it this way – I hope he stays.

Our placing depends on how we cope with both the fixture pile up and injuries.

Kieran Trippier, Anthony Gordon, Fabian Schar

Stay with me.

Bruno is important, as is Sven Botman, as is Sean Longstaff. You don’t make a team out of three players. I feel we can miss any player for a game or two but Trippier and Gordon are vital. And who would have thought Fabian Schar would be the stalwart at the back. Sven Botman being injured hasn’t been missed thanks to the sterling work of renaissance man Jamaal Lascelles. Schar has been the constant at the back topped off by that wonder strike against PSG. New contract for the Swiss? Definitely.

Optimistic, Entertained and Proud.

As apposed to Pessimistic, disinterested and disappointed for years.

A must win game and the whole squad fit and available, which 11 would you select?

Pope

Trippier Schar Botman Burn

Bruno Longstaff Joelinton

Almiron Isak Gordon

Add in that it would leave a bench of Durbravka, Lascelles, Livramento, Willock, Murphy, Barnes and Wilson and we are in good hands.

Your thoughts on each of the signings made in 2023 – Gordon, Minteh, Livramento, Hall, Tonali, Barnes.

Anthony Gordon has steadily improved since his arrival and will get more game time due to the injury to new signing Harvey Barnes.

Barnes himself excites me, terribly unlucky to be injured but hopefully raring to go in the New Year.

“Tino” Livramento is one for the future yet can come in straight away. Kieran Trippier is my favourite player but I can see Livramento taking over that, as I’m really looking forward to seeing him develop.

I haven’t seen enough of Lewis Hall or Minteh.

Sandro Tonali – I’m not going into details because we could be on all day but it looks like we’re going to be without him for a long time. Thankfully, his likely absence is offset by the returning Joe Willock.

Is this a season for prioritising cup competitions over the Premier League?

Not especially.

It’s a long running debate that grows tiresome.

You WANT to win cups, any cup will do, but unfortunately players don’t come to England to win the League Cup or even the FA Cup nowadays. They want European football and in particular the Champions League. If 5th place gets you Champions League then that would be my aim.

I’ll never forget the final whistle of the Leicester City game at St James’ Park last season, when Champions League qualification was confirmed. I must admit a tear was shed.

I don’t think it dawned on me straight away the scale of the achievement and in such a short space of time. At the age of 40, I had written off seeing Champions League football for the club this side of my 50th birthday. The takeover changed that perspective but I must say, the speed of the progress has been astonishingly good. Credit the players, management and ownership.

How would you rate this start to the season?

A solid 8/10.

Liverpool at home was a disappointment and one of only a few moments where I felt the manager got things a little wrong. We surrendered possession and let them back into a game that should have been over. That said, Brighton away was a complete non-performance where nobody came out of it with any credit whatsoever.

The rest of the fixtures I’ve been happy enough with from the 5-1 opening day win over Aston Villa to the record breaking 8-0 away win at Sheffield United. Burnley and Brentford at home were games in previous seasons I could have seen us slip up in. Not so this time round.

This season we have played eight Premier League games and have 13 points, where we had just 11 points at the same stage last season. I’ve made a big thing of our over-reliance on draws last season (14 was abnormally high) and while remaining unbeaten is a canny trait to have, sacrificing a draw in search of a win and risking the odd defeat, racks up more points in the long run.

How wrong did you get it on Anthony Gordon… or did you get it right?

I don’t think I got it wrong or right per se.

I raised question marks over his character and didn’t know how he would fit in the squad. Player-wise, he had something on the brief appearances I saw for Everton. He’s certainly been top drawer for us this season and another product of Eddie Howe’s revitalisation programme for players.

Were you panicking after the trio of defeats to Man City, Liverpool and Brighton?

I think like everyone I was concerned, especially the manner of the Brighton defeat so soon after the collapse at home to Liverpool. Three defeats in a row can’t go unchecked. If it had turned into four or five then I would have been worried. I was a little tense during the nervy 1-0 win over Brentford because that relit our season.

Should ex-players be introduced to help with VAR?

I’ve said before that if you had told me years ago that you could introduce a system where you could review an incident over and over and over and over again from multiple angles and by multiple people and STILL get the decision wrong, I would have laughed. It’s a farce. Adding in that one such official didn’t want to flag a decision to “protect his (referee) friend” and you start to see that it’s not up to snuff.

Ex players? Not sure what that would achieve.

Press a magic button and between now and next season kicking off – Win the Carabao Cup or have a 65,000 capacity St James’ Park in place?

The cup all day long.

The stadium is what it is, we can’t get that overnight and I would have thought around 70,000 would likely be it’s maximum capacity in any likely development and something like that WILL happen in the coming years.

Seeing a Newcastle United Captain with a trophy aloft will go down in our history, regardless of the stadium capacity.