The elite players won’t be interested in joining Newcastle United in the summer if they don’t qualify for the Champions League again this season.
Sky Germany’s Florian Schmidt Sommerfeld, who wasn’t even somewhat pleased by the 8-0 triumph over Sheffield United, said as much.
He talks about that game today and expresses his ongoing doubts about Eddie Howe’s team, saying they have “too much instability” to compete in the Champions League the following season.
Their performance in that competition has left him with ‘doubts’ and he points out that their display against AC Milan, a much more competent side than Sheffield United, was concerning.
He doesn’t believe Newcastle can produce the quality needed over long stretches and Milan proved they can be got at defensively as well.
That’s a game in which the Magpies ‘barely got away with it’ according to Sommerfeld and Milan were ‘superior in every way’, which should have the alarm bells ringing.
He thinks they’re struggling to transition from a defensive counter attack team to one that needs to be on the front foot and winning, and because of that he ‘can’t imagine them being in the Champions League again’.
The fact that the majority of the Premier League’s top teams have thus far returned to their best performances does not help with that challenge, making a top four berth even more difficult to secure.
And it will be a problem for Newcastle, as they “may have to open their wallets further” to sign the top players from “the expensive shelf” and entice them to “uncomfortable north-east of England” if they don’t have that to give.
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