When will Newcastle United start competing? Here’s the answer | OneFootball

The question I often hear, and the debate that surrounds it, is when will Newcastle United start competing, be competitive?

I suppose before you can answer that question, you need to define what equals being competitive/competing.

Winning trophies is the most obvious way to tick that box, or at least it was in the olden days.

However, in the modern era in the English top tier, becoming regular finishers in the top four of the Premier League now equals being one of the competitive clubs.

If you can manage to do that, then trophies should automatically follow, plus of course, playing in the Champions League year after year.

All of these things generate more and more money and strengthen your club’s position all the time, whilst at the same time weakening all the time those clubs you are keeping out of the Champions League places.

This is basically the scenario that has seen Newcastle United have such a financial divide to close, the half dozen clubs that grabbed so much money and power over a decade and a half, whilst at Newcastle United we had Mike Ashley rowing in the opposite direction!

Anyway, that is all in the past, so where are Newcastle United positioned now?

As a little exercise, I thought I would look back at the last two and a half Premier League seasons.

Which is 95 Premier League matches, with 14 clubs having been in the top tier for all of those last three seasons.

In the case of Newcastle United, this is basically our form post-takeover, after giving Eddie Howe only around six weeks and eight PL matches to get his feet under the table at St James’ Park, before we judge him against the rest.

Total number of points accumulated by Premier League clubs these past two and a half seasons (In brackets, points picked up in final 19 games of 2021/22, plus all 38 games of 2022/23, plus all the matches of 2023/24):

226 Manchester City (46 + 89 +91)

207 Arsenal (34 + 84 + 89)

169 Newcastle United (38 +71 + 60)

163 Tottenham (35 + 60 + 68)

162 Manchester United (27 + 75 + 60)

152 Aston Villa (23 + 61 + 68)

134 Brighton (24 + 62 + 48)

121 Brentford (23 + 59 + 39)

119 Crystal Palace (25 + 45 + 49)

117 West Ham (25 + 40 + 52)

110 Wolves (23 + 41 + 46)

96 Everton (20 + 36 + 40)

Conclusions

These last two and a half Premier League seasons, showing Manchester City well ahead of everybody else, with Arsenal and Liverpool way back, 19 and 24 points less respectively.

Another big drop of 33 points BUT intriguing to see Newcastle United clear as the fourth strongest team these past two and a half years.

Six and seven points ahead of Tottenham and Man U, 17 more points than Villa, 29 above Chelsea.

The truth is that these past two and a half seasons of form, starting from the point of eight PL games and less than two months after Eddie Howe started, show that Newcastle United are already competitive. The stats don’t lie.

With even average injuries last season, I have no doubts that Eddie Howe and Newcastle United would have generated the 8+ extra points that would have meant the top four once again and Champions League football.

These 169 points in 95 Premier League matches over two and a half seasons, equals an average of around 1.78 points per game, which when then averaged over a 38-match season, gives 68 points.

This two-and-a-half seasons worth of Premier League form, strongly shows (proves?) that Newcastle United is now a Champions League club.

Simply a case of in this upcoming 2024/25 season, reinforcing that position, keep on growing the club on and off the pitch, and making sure that the top four is a minimum this next campaign.