This would be outstanding for Newcastle United next season | OneFootball

After the Premier League played out the very final round of matches, we are now into the Newcastle United close season.

An ideal time to get a snapshot of views from Newcastle United fans on how they think things are going.

So we sent out various sets of questions to a number of regular / irregular contributors to The Mag.

Next up we have Jonathan Drape-Comyn:

If you look at the upcoming 2023/24 season for Newcastle United, what would you see as:

Disappointing

Getting relegated obviously. On top of that though, if we are knocked out of the cup competitions early, finish last in our Champions League group (meaning not even Europa League football in the Spring) and don’t come close to any sort of European place, then that would be a very disappointing campaign.

Qualifying for Europe.

If that means by finishing 8th and qualifying for the Conference League then I would just about say that was satisfactory. We have hopes and expectations but I think the minimum ‘satisfactory’ expectation from this point is that we are a mainstay in the European football calendar.

Good

Sixth and above with a decent cup run. Whether that be the final of the League Cup, semi-finals of the FA Cup or the latter stages of the Champions League / Europa League.

Outstanding

Either qualifying for the Champions League again or winning a trophy.

The key five current NUFC players for next season, in order of importance?

Isak, Bruno, Trippier, Pope, Joelinton.

How would you describe your life now, including the black and white part, compared to summer 2021 (back then it was pre-takeover, Ashley and Bruce, just coming out of lockdown restrictions, stadiums yet to open fully to fans, so many different life circumstances for everybody)?

I was in Singapore summer 2021 and had completely fallen out of love with it. I would almost never stay up past 10pm to watch Steve Bruce’s Newcastle and if my mates were doing something on a Saturday evening then I’d be happy to miss the 3pm kick offs too.

After the takeover, I think Tottenham was the first game where I stayed up late to watch the game by myself (maybe since 2019!?). I kept that going and then moved back in February 2022.

My first game back was Southampton away and the whole feel of supporting Newcastle since then has been incomparable to before. I realised I was really missing a part of myself being away from the football in Asia. I made an effort to go to pretty much every game at the end of the 2021/22 season.

Last season, with work commitments and travelling for work, I didn’t get to as many games as I would have liked but I haven’t really cared to be honest with you. It’s just been such a pleasure watching the team again, seeing your mates happy and going along with it.

Great to have your club back.

Newcastle United having an ever increasing global fanbase, how do you feel about it? Positives? Negatives? Observations?

What could possibly be the problem? It can only be a good thing. We have a big stadium that is filled every week, I am sure when / if it goes to 60,000, it will still be sold out. The fans have always been there.

If you want to be a big club winning trophies on the global stage then you have to act like it. The more support the better.

Take one player from each of Man City, Arsenal, Man U, Spurs, Brighton, Liverpool, Chelsea?

Man City – De Bruyne (realistically: Julian Alvarez or Kalvin Phillips)

Arsenal – Saka (realistically: Kieran Tierney)

Man U – Maybe Sancho or Shaw? To be honest, I wouldn’t have any of them. Couldn’t care less about anything Man U related.

Spurs – Kane (realistically: Dejan Kulusevski or Fraser Forster!)

Brighton – Caicedo (realistically: Kaoru Mitoma, Pervis Estupinan, or Evan Ferguson)

Liverpool – Just like Man U really, couldn’t care less about them. Obviously Van Dijk.

Chelsea – Chilwell? They have some good English players, Hudson-Odoi, Gallagher, or Loftus Cheek.

It is now 20 months under the new NUFC owners:

Positive thoughts?

We are in the Champions League, the club is running like a proper football club, the mood is positive, the recruitment has been fantastic. I have 100% complete trust in the owners, staff, manager, and players to make the right decisions for this football club.

Negative thoughts?

I guess the only one is where the money comes from…

Observations?

The whole club has just been completely transformed. None of this is a surprise though. I think it was always obvious to most people that with a fair amount of investment, honesty, communication, effort and willingness, that this was very easily possible.

I have always said about Newcastle, that if you get the fans onside, do the right things, then they’ll take you 70-80% of the way there.

The rest requires that little bit of money, and of course, luck. You make your own luck though.

At what point this past season did you first think top four was possible? Then at what point were you confident of it happening for NUFC?

Possibly the Leicester game after Christmas. It wouldn’t have been inconceivable that it would be difficult to rekindle our good form before the World Cup. So when we hit the ground running again after 20 odd minutes, you thought to yourself this might happen!

However, definitely after the Fulham game at home.

If you are going to reach your goals in any season then you have to win those games, find ways to win those games. Even if it’s ugly. Successful seasons are built on those late goals in games where you just haven’t performed – they are really essential. We would go on to do it again against Wolves and Forest…

After the Southampton home game I was confident. That was the first game where you looked at the next fixture and thought ‘well we don’t really have to win that one’. At that point, you were able to look at the fixtures and say ‘we need X amount of points, and I am confident that we’ll be able to get that from those games’.

Man City, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool, Newcastle, Aston Villa, Man U, Everton.