Pardew: “We won’t get Champions League football this season”

Posted on March 30th, 2012 | 16 Comments |

Pardew lays out his 3 year plan for Newcastle United.
Realistic aims?
Newcastle United manager Alan Pardew has been talking about his aims for the next three seasons, but writes off Champions League qualification for this season.

This is what Alan Pardew had to say about his 3-year plan for the club:

“You want to be in there competing, and we have done that.

“Whether we get a European place will probably be decided by fate more than anything. We have had a great season regardless of the European spot, and we want to do that again next year.

“By hook or by crook, in the next three years it would be nice to get some sort of European football or win a trophy. That’s the goal.

“We won’t get Champions League football this season, I just think that’s too big a gap to bridge – five points on Spurs, and Arsenal are probably away from us now.

“It’s too much, they are too good teams to catch with eight games left.“

It’s probably a fair assessment. At the start of this season I reckoned we’d most likely finish in the 9th-11th area and would have considered it a huge success to finish 8th. In the context of our season as it stands at the moment though, I’d be disappointed if we didn’t finish at least 6th and I can see why Pardew might think fate would have a hand in whether or not we get to Europe in those circumstances. It could all come down to who’s in the FA Cup final and who wins it.

We could take fate out of the equation by getting 5th place of course and I’m beginning to think that might just be within our grasp. I think we’ll know better after this weekend because if we can cope as well against the team one place below us as we did against West Brom last weekend, there’ll be good cause for optimism.

As to the next three years, I think European football and/or winning some sort of trophy is a decent aim. Of course Pardew’s hopes need to be backed by Ashley or they’ll never be realised. We know how things go by now and must expect a certain turnover of players to fund the club, but the balance will need to be spot on because we can’t sell every good player and still harbour desires to lift trophies. One of the biggest problems might be hanging on to players we don’t want to sell when the rich clubs come knocking on the door.

Incidentally, I’m sure ‘fate’ is the only reason my village cricket team have only won one match in three years. It has nothing to do with us having eleven number 11 batsmen and bowlers for whom hitting the pitch is an achievement let alone hitting the stumps.

Anyway, what do you think?. Are Pardew’s aims too pessimistic, too optimistic or pretty much correct?

NUFCBlog Author: Hugh de Payen I'm a baby-boomer of the punk rock persuasion, currently exiled in Somerset for crimes committed in a previous life where locals keep trying to poison me with something called 'scrumpy'. Hates sprouts, coat-hangers, Cilla Black, ornaments, Steven Seagull movies and 50 Cent (he's not worth 10). Hugh de Payen has written 634 articles on this blog.

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Comment on this post

16 Responses

  1. it seems quite reasonable to me. The obvious problem is strength in depth. The defense in particular is severely taxed ATM.

  2. I think if we bag 3 points against Liverpool on Sunday then we’ve got 6th nailed down. Everton, Liverpool, Chelsea, City and Swansea are 5 difficult games out of our remaining 8, but 3 points tomorrow has us on 53. Surely we can hit 60 points this season?

  3. Tottenham ,Chelsea Arsenal and Liverpool at present all have more quality in depth than we do.
    However if we continue to recruit players of the quality of those who arrived this season, then things could change.
    Of course, this attitude is based on keeping our top players and re-building our woefully small defence.
    Which is doubtful, having heard Wor Derrick’s recent appraisil of the marketplace.
    I can only assume we will be willing to sell our stars in order to subsidise whats become the byword for recruits, younger, better and of course cheaper.
    And Pardew has been designated as the one, to relay the message to the faithful.
    Not exactly subtle, but we should know how these guys operate by now.
    Ah well !

  4. OT: can anyone help me with messaging? Stephen C mentioned sending me a message on the last blog I commented on (been a few days) but I have no idea where that went. When I hit that “dashboard” button above I get a screen full of gobbledegook that I don’t understand at all. The message certainly didn’t go to the email account I listed when I created my account here. Help?

  6. “Whether we get a European place will probably be decided by fate more than anything.”

    If we outperform teams below us for the remainder of the season and anybody but Everton win the FAC we’re in as far as I can tell. Over here that’s pretty much what we call “controlling your own fate.”

    I don’t agree that LFC have more quality. Every quality player on their roster is matched by one on ours and ours is often younger. I’d rather have HBA or Cabaye than the Gerrard of today. Carragher and Kuyt are past it, Carroll looks more and more like a flop and Adam was a one-season flash in the pan. Downing has fewer goals than Jonas this season. Jay Spearing is their match for Tiote. Suarez is no better than Cisse, as the world will learn, and Cisse doesn’t paint a target on his chest with unsporting behavior. They might have slightly more depth but imo, our first XI is better than theirs. After 30 games, the table agrees.

  7. must admit holding onto the same team next season as well as adding to it would certainly make us a formidable team.

    this season our problem has been injuries, but it hasn’t been as bad a season as we have had in the past.

    remember when tino left, ferdy went to spurs and shearer was out injured?

    we have had season after season of crucial injuries at times when we needed our best team.

    i cant recall ever playing a champions league game with our full strength squad. im sure shearer was injured for most of our games there.

    well have players at the moment who arent quite good enough for first team but in two or three years will be on top form. james tavernier for example.

    there have been numerous complaints about our top defender this season not being good enough, so for next season, should we find a replacement, we should at least keep our right back in the squad for strength and depth purposes. left back too, apparently pieters is a done deal. pieters can play lb or CB which is good for number of reasons.

    in the summer i would say we need one left back one right back and one center back and let them all compete against each other.

    if we keep our team as it is we will in my opinion have a more productive season than this season. and we will be just as strong as the team we got relegated with.(imo i still cant believe we were relegated with the players we had but such is life but injuries and sick notes spring to mind)

    imo the relegation squad was one of the strongest squads we have had since rob lee, Garry speed and Allan sheerer graced the hallowed turf, but unfortunately it also seems to have been one of the most individual teams we have ever had too.

    if we can strengthen the squad with only 3 players in the close season then imo we will have just as strong a squad as then,if not stronger and potentially one of the strongest since 1900-1910.

    there are squad players we can get rid of far sooner than our best players. tiote sale imo is premature and another 2 years at the toon should give him a price tag to rival carrolls.

    but in all fairness i think the shop window approach by lamearse and pardeux of late is off putting and i think clubs might stay away. especially since we seem to be great at rubbing other teams noses into it with the cash we receive.

  8. tunyc i didnt mean click on the dashboard link i mieant click on the CONTACT link.

    its third button along directly under the picture of joe harvey holding the FA cup

    it should send you to a contact page, you will be able to send worky an email and providing he doesn’t mind, he can then forward me your email onto me.

    safest way i think.

    ive got people trying to find out what brand of strawberry syrup Ba uses, but as far as im aware, its more of a cordial than a syrup.

    i know you Americans struggle with diluting things, i could never find any cordials in the USA. here we can buy 3 liters of cordial which we add water to. in the usa 3 liter bottles came ready mixed, everywhere. the only thing i found ever needing mixed with water was coolaid, a powder and surfers.

  9. sad news about petrov who was diagnosed with leukaemia after coming down with a fever after the arsenal game last weekend!

  11. yes agreed 4411 another footballing perspective.

    just a shame the judges and courts don’t feel the same as mother nature does.

    tripp one thing i noticed also your variety of food was a lot smaller than ours. our version of wallmart, Asdas packs its shelves with food where as in the USA it was packed with devices, clothing and hunting gear from air rifles to semi automatics. food didnt seem a priority in any supermarkets i visited

    it seems like you would rather eat out than eat in and you only eat in when you can be bothered and eat out when you cant.

    and one thing

    could i hell find gravy anywhere.

  12. i reckon tomorrows game will have plenty of goals should be a classic seeing how we are free scoring with a makeshift defence and liverpool looking vulnerable with players capable of stepping up to the occasion and attacking options can go either way. europa is in our sights the worse case if everton make the final then it makes it difficult to try and secure 5th with Chelsea doing well so far under di matteo

  13. tunyc says:

    “If we outperform teams below us for the remainder of the season and anybody but Everton win the FAC we’re in as far as I can tell.”

    Actually Everton can spoil the party for us just by getting to the final – they don’t necessarily have to win it. For example, if they lose in the final to a team which qualifies for the Champions League then they themselves would still qualify for a Europa League place as Cup Final runners-up.

    The trouble is that this whole qualification issue is just so complicated. There are so many variables and different permutations involved so nobody can really be certain of anything at this stage but if you want to delve into it a bit further this article is one of the best I’ve seen on the subject so far: http://www.leazesterrace.com/the-complicated-road-to-europe/

  14. to be honest lad it understand the europe qualification like jam and bread.

    at the moment in 6th we wont qualify.

    but if two teams who have already qualified for europe make it to the fa cup final, if we finish 6th and are the highest team in the league who have not finished for europe then we would take the FA cup runners up spot.

    simple as that.

    we need liverpool to beat everton in the semi final and we are there.

    obviously providing we finish the league in a higher position than any other club who hasn’t already made it into europe.

    alternatively we can just pip 5th spot to make it an a certainty.

  15. TUNYC
    Noticed when you disagreed that Liverpool have more quality in depth than NUFC, that you totally left out the defense.
    Sure when comparing individual players, some of ours are better, but that was not the argument i presented.

    Stephen c
    If you go back a few blogs into the archives, you will find an entire blog, dedicated to, who, when, how, and if, gets into Europe.
    But be warned, after reading it you are guaranteed to be more confused than ou are at presnt.

  16. chuck my friend.

    i understand it completely

    you just have to concentrate on who can qualify for europe directly. that is the easy part to understand.

    then the rest is easy. its not confusing. the only thing that is more confusing is the parts where third parties add confusion when everyone seems to have an opinion and it turns out to be wrong.

    europa and champs league are set places and are a direct route into europe.

    newcastle are hoping for an indirect route into europe.

    that is where people get lost and confused.
    but still its easy to understand, just people insist on looking for the complicated option.

    we can only get into europe if we finish 6th or 7th and NO TEAM BELOW US, WHO HAVENT ALREADY QUALIFIED FOR EUROPE, REACH THE FINAL OF THE FA CUP.

    what is so difficult to grasp.

    in other words we are hoping to be given the europa league place given to the winners of the FA cup. SIMPLE AS THAT.

    so work out how we could be given the place in the europa league if we arent in the FA cup?

    i will tell you

    if the two teams who are in the final of the FA cup have already qualified for europe. we would get into europe via the FA cup winners/Runner up place.

    but only if no other team who hasn’t already qualified for europe finish above us.

    so if for some reason we bomb for the rest of the season and we finish 8th and everton finish 6th or 7th they would qualify the same way as we are hoping to. via the FA cup. providing they aren’t already into the final of the FA cup.

    4 places for the champs league

    3 for europa league.
    FA cup winners
    5th place prem finish
    League cup winners.

    anymore questions please feel free to ask.

    just call me yoda stephen