Aston Villa are proof that things have worked out really well for Newcastle United with Europe | OneFootball

Aston Villa kicked off their 2023/24 season with a 5-1 thrashing from Newcastle United.

Unai Emery’s team ended their season with a 5-0 hammering by Crystal Palace.

Aston Villa fans seeing this as their greatest campaign in over 30 years…

A strange season indeed.

With Newcastle United, Saturday a big talking point.

Some Newcastle United fans seemingly losing their minds as Man U beat Man City, with the ramifications for other clubs and their fanbases.

I have seen some ‘interesting’ discussions, arguments, debates about the European angle and one superb article in particular by John Martin this Sunday morning, a Newcastle fan writing on The Mag.

He argued that it was ‘great news’ that Newcastle United hadn’t qualified for the Europa Conference League, honestly, well wort a read.

I am coming from a little bit of a different perspective with this article, although it is very much linked to a lot of what John Martin was saying.

I think by far the biggest irony, is that many Newcastle United fans (and others) will be using the example of Aston Villa as ‘proof’ that playing in the Europa Conference League was a positive for the club this season.

I think this is very very misguided nonsense.

The basic facts are that yes Aston Villa did get to the semi-finals of the Europa Conference League AND at the same time qualified for (the first ever time) Champion League football next season.

As the final 2023/24 Premier League table shows:

Scratch beneath the surface though…

So this is the way the theory goes, Aston Villa have (supposedly) shown that it is no problem for a club outside the established few, to play all through the Europa Conference League competition and yet still finish top four. Villa starting their European adventure back in August 2023 and ending it nine months and 14 matches later in the semi-finals this month.

Scratching beneath the surface though and a very different picture emerges.

People claim Newcastle United were lucky to finish fourth in 2022/23 and qualify for the Champions League, lucky due to all kinds of factors allegedly, they should have a look at Aston Villa…

Aston Villa had very kind luck with injuries this 2023/24 season, Newcastle United losing almost twice as many days to player injuries as Unai Emery’s squad (and pretty much every other squad!) AND that doesn’t even include Tonali missing almost the entire season with his ban!

In the domestic cup competitions, Aston Villa won only one match (against second tier Middlesbrough) so those extra commitments minimal.

Manchester United had all kinds of problems / issues this past season and same with Chelsea, plus those two clubs the next worst badly affected by injuries.

So the way was left wide open for a surprise team to end up fourth and get Champions League qualification. That ended up between Aston Villa and Tottenham.

Spurs are clearly not even anything remotely special and yet Aston Villa almost nearly threw Champions League away.

Tottenham doing their best to now finish top four and only ‘succeeding’ in that for me, due to Aston Villa participating in the Europa Conference League as well, whilst Spurs had no European football at all in 2023/24.

Before the final day of the season at Sheffield United, Tottenham lost five of six Premier League matches and yet only failed by two points to finish top four!

After 10 March 2024, Tottenham only managed wins against teams who ended up in the bottom four. Only one more win in the games they drew or lost in the final two and a half months of the season, or a couple of draws in the seven games they lost, including 4-0 at Newcastle, Tottenham would be playing Champions League next season and Aston Villa Europa league at best.

Aston Villa collapsed at the end, knackered, with the Europa Conference League undoubtedly a big factor. Villa won only three of their last 11 Premier League matches and conceded 24 goals in them. Only two points from a possible final 12 and conceding 11 goals in that quartet of matches you could hardly even say they crawled over the line!

Newcastle United were far more impressive last season in their four place Champions League qualification, picking up three more points than Aston Villa have done this time AND Newcastle did it was a GD of +35  compared to Villa’s +15.

I bet Unai Emery is now counting his lucky stars that Aston Villa still fluked it, as their Europa Conference League commitments would surely have proved fatal, if not for the fact a feeble Tottenham ended up as their closest competitor.